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Objectives and Goals

  • Improve the care of seriously ill patients and their families.
  • Improve clinician satisfaction, by building generalist palliative care knowledge and clinical skills with an emphasis on communication across disciplines.
  • Promote the understanding and integration of palliative care across the continuum of care for Virginia Mason Franciscan Health. Integration is accomplished by normalizing the utilization of palliative care in all patient care settings at any stage of illness and at all levels of skill from generalist palliative care to specialist palliative care.

Program goals

  • Improve the care of seriously ill patients and their families.
  • Improve clinician satisfaction, by building generalist palliative care knowledge and clinical skills with an emphasis on communication across disciplines.
  • Promote the understanding and integration of palliative care across the continuum of care for Virginia Mason Franciscan Health. Integration is accomplished by normalizing the utilization of palliative care in all patient care settings at any stage of illness and at all levels of skill from generalist palliative care to specialist palliative care.

Program objectives

    • Reflect on personal and professional experiences and values related to care of the seriously ill or dying patient.
    • Reflect on how patients and families experience similar thoughts and emotions when faced with serious illness and subsequent loss.
    • Reflect on the losses related to the diagnosis of serious/life threatening illness.
    • Reflect on the importance of looking at symptoms as clues to the experience of suffering in illness.
    • Differentiate between curing and healing in person/family centered care.
    • Outline the clinician’s responsibilities during Code Status conversations.

    • Examine the differences between the traditional model of curative/palliative trajectory versus palliative as a continuum of care.
    • Outline three tools to identify patients for whom transitions may be imminent.
    • Formulate two possible medical recommendations that match patient preferences.
    • Identify three reasons why it is important to prognosticate and why we do not do it.
    • Identify the questions and concerns of families surrounding the use of artificial hydration and nutrition in patients with advanced dementia.
    • Identify the concerns of clinicians surrounding the use of artificial hydration and nutrition in patients with advanced dementia.
    • Differentiate between chronic and acute pain.
    • Outline how to assess and treat breathlessness.
    • Develop a plan for pain/symptom management in the clinical scenario.
    • Understand decision-making hierarchy and substituted judgment.
    • Learn to assess decisional capacity.
    • Establish a functional goal when using opioids for pain management.
    • Using a clinical case, practice prescribing an opioid for acute pain management.
    • Review appropriate utilization of the POLST form in clinical settings and education of patients and families.

    • Practice the concept of “asking” before “telling”.
    • Recognize and respond to patient cues.
    • Participant will demonstrate the use of their self-selected “words that work” in eliciting the patient story and in establishing goals of care.
    • Identify three language tools which acknowledge uncertainty.
    • Define serious news and apply the House Model to communicating serious news.
    • Participants will identify patient verbal and non-verbal “cues” as well as their own communication “continuers” and “terminators” when discussing goals of care.
    • Participants will make medical recommendations based on what they identify as being important to the patient.
    • Practice using Code Status language.

    • Identify a five step model for establishing goals of care.
    • Practice using Teach Back to determine Health Literacy and eliciting substituted judgment from health care surrogates.

    • Differentiate between specialist and generalist palliative care and the reason for incorporating generalist palliative care into practice.
    • Identify appropriateness of referral to palliative care and hospice.
Note: The Advanced Communication Academy is aimed at training physicians and mid-level clinicians. If you are a health care professional such as a nurse, social worker or case manager and you are interested in attending a session, please do not register until you have communicated with Marilyn Pattison at the email address below.

Contact us

For more information please email Marilyn Pattison at [email protected].