Palliative Care Provider (MD, PA, and NP) Onboarding Curriculum
This learning pathway contains recommended clinical training for new providers on the specialty palliative care team.
Defining palliative care, which patients need it, how it is delivered, and how palliative care differs from hospice.
Pain Management
Conducting a comprehensive pain assessment to guide safe and effective treatment.
Selecting a safe and appropriate analgesic for patients with serious illness based on the pain assessment.
Patient and family factors that influence prescribing decisions for patients with serious illness.
Integrating routine risk assessment for substance use disorder when considering or using opioid therapy.
Designing a safe and effective opioid trial for the patient with serious illness.
Safe and appropriate opioid prescribing for the opioid-naive patient with serious illness.
Four indications for using short-acting opioids.
Ongoing evaluation of opioid benefits, risks, and side effects for the patient with serious illness.
Guidance on safe conversion to long-acting opioids for patients with serious illness.
Prescribing practice for long half-life opioids, converting from one opioid to another, and accounting for incomplete cross-tolerance.
Changing the route of opioid delivery, rotating opioids, advanced opioid conversions, and tapering opioids.
Safe opioid prescribing in older adults, cognitively impaired patients, children, and the imminently dying, including patient-controlled analgesia.
Pain management for patients with serious illness and high risk for substance use disorder, including risk assessment, monitoring, and when to refer for safe pain management.
Safe opioid prescribing for patients with serious illness, using the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) Guidelines for the Chronic Use of Opioid Analgesics.
Symptom Management
Identifying and managing nausea and vomiting for patients living with serious illness and their caregivers.
Reducing physical and emotional suffering from dyspnea for patients with serious illness.
Assessing and managing constipation in people with serious illness.
Prevalence, screening recommendations, and evidence-based strategies to treat anxiety in patients with serious illness.
Prevalence, screening recommendations, and evidence-based strategies to treat depression in patients with serious illness.
Communication Skills
Communicating serious clinical news to patients and families.
How to discuss patient prognosis in a manner that is sensitive, clear, and supportive.
Strategies for eliciting patient goals and preferences to inform treatment decisions.
Communication techniques for an effective family meeting.
How to initiate and conduct conversations about advance care planning.
Best Practices in Dementia Care and Caregiver Support
Disclosing a dementia diagnosis to patients and caregivers in a way that is sensitive, clear, and supportive.
Helping patients and caregivers understand challenges they may face as dementia worsens.
Enabling patients and caregivers to plan ahead for the financial, legal, and other impacts of dementia.
Assessing for caregiver burden and connecting caregivers to needed support systems.
Strategies for understanding and addressing the sources of behavioral symptoms for people living with dementia.
Addressing common sources of suffering for people living with dementia.
Addressing common sources of suffering for people living with advanced dementia.
Relief of Suffering Across the Disease Trajectory
Identifying and addressing the sources of suffering for patients and families living with dementia.
Assessing and addressing sources of suffering for people living with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and their caregivers.
Interventions to reduce suffering along the disease trajectory for people living with congestive heart failure (CHF), and their families.
Managing Gaps in Care: Discipline-Specific Approaches
Guidance for collaborating with treating providers to ensure that members who would benefit receive palliative care.
Communication and assessment techniques for case managers to elicit goals of care and address suffering for people with serious illness.
The role of the direct care worker in observing and reporting suffering in patients with serious illness.
Preventing Crises Through Whole-Patient Care
Assessing and supporting caregivers of people with serious illness.
Guidance for all clinicians on improving communication and ensuring smooth transitions of care for patients living with serious illness.
Building Physician Skills in Basic Advance Care Planning
Identify the role of physicians and advanced practitioners in introducing patients to ACP.
Build physicians’ and advanced practitioners’ skills in guiding and documenting ACP conversations.
Ways for physicians and advanced practitioners to integrate and bill for ACP in their practice.
Download a PDF of this Learning Pathway
Download PDF
