Design and Implementation of a Primary Palliative Care Education Program for Hematology-Oncology Advanced Practice Providers: Insights From a Three-Year Cohort

Background

Palliative care (PC) integration within oncology leads to improved patient-reported outcomes. However, oncology teams are increasingly tasked with providing PC as demand for such services continues to outpace the number of available PC specialists. Additionally, the number of oncologists nationally has remained stable, which has led to greater responsibility for advanced practice providers (APPs), many of whom never received formal PC training. Unfortunately, despite strong advocacy for training within APP programs, PC is not consistently offered.

Purpose

Our aim was to create a comprehensive PC certificate course for Hematology/Oncology APPs that was cost neutral with objective learning assessments to ensure all graduates could competently deliver PC.

Interventions

Our 12-month curriculum consisted of six didactic lectures, six parallel case studies, and 40 h of experiential clinical time with the inpatient PC service. To achieve certification, participants were required to attend all lectures, complete clinical hours, and pass both a validated clinical communication assessment, the ACP CAT, and a multiple-choice medical knowledge exam.

Results

We have successfully graduated three cohorts (n = 18). All participants achieved certification and reported increased confidence in providing primary PC independently.

Conclusion

Our PC certificate program for Hematology/Oncology APPs delivers multimodal education through both didactic content and clinical emersion. It additionally leverages a train the trainer model to allow graduates to both competently deliver primary PC and become content experts to teach future participants. While this program was designed for Hematology/Oncology APPs, it can be easily adapted to meet PC needs in other specialties and institutions.