levels.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO): ‘Palliative care improves the quality of life of patients and that of their families who are facing challenges associated with life-threatening illness, whether physical, psychological, social, or spiritual.’
Palliative care asks health care providers to look beyond the disease and see the person. What are the patient’s needs? Does the patient want more (possibly debilitating) cancer treatment when a cure is unlikely? Patient involvement in the decision-making processes is a key feature of the emerging patient-centered care model that aims to lead to better healthcare services and patient outcomes.
Rise to the challenge
The multidisciplinary aspects of palliative care can make it challenging. Complicating this, research has shown that a lack of palliative care education in undergraduate medical curricula throughout Europe is a major obstacle. In response to a growing awareness of this omission, the KWF initiative aims to provide a solution: a national education program for healthcare providers at all levels.
This funding underscores that KWF recognizes the importance of education to improve the lives of patients with cancer in addition to funding promising research projects.
The role of Amsterdam UMC’s Institute of Education and Training is to lead and coordinate the development of training courses in oncological palliative care building on existing initiatives.
Towards a uniform and high-quality education program in palliative care
In the past decade, several projects have been initiated to promote palliative care concepts. ZonMw subsidized the platform Optimizing Education Palliative Care (O²PZ) in 2016 to ensure the curricula of educational courses included proper descriptions of palliative care. In addition, Carend recently received funding from KWF to educate nurses in palliative care for cancer patients.
“What is missing is a unified national education program in palliative care for care providers at all levels, in which learning objectives and quality of information are assured,” program manager Johan Joosse explains. “The plan is first to build on the existing independent initiatives and material that have been developed.”
Johan Joosse is now reaching out to stakeholders including hospitals, Palliative Care Netherlands (PZNL), Expertise Center Palliative Care (EPZ), Palliactief, National Consultation Consortia (LOCo), and various other patient and educational institutions in the healthcare sector. Through this collaboration, training needs will be determined to develop the national education program.
Johan: “The scope of the program is cancer patients for now, but palliative care also concerns other disorders for whom healing is not possible such as: serious heart failure, COPD, dementia, and vulnerable elderly people. As such, initiating a uniform palliative education program in oncological care is just the beginning.”
This program is supported by a collaborative network established during the drafting of the initial project proposal. “Many other centers are involved, like Radboud UMC and Leiden UMC. Together, we are developing these training courses that will be deployed nationwide by various educational institutes throughout the Netherlands.”
established by O2PZ, I see it as one of my most important tasks as program manager to create support among the stakeholders to make this program a success.
The projects
The initiative to organize a unified national education program in oncological palliative care started in April this year and is anticipated to be completed by December 2024. It is organized into three parallel projects: the definition of teacher qualifications, the education of palliative care teachers, and the educational program content.
An overseeing advisory board with experts in the field will be installed to ensure the education is high quality and reflects the latest insights in the field of palliative care. In addition, a content focus group will be organized to provide applicable information for training courses.
“Initially, we focused on what exactly needs to be done in terms of activities. What expertise do we need? How much time is needed? How do we identify and involve the right people?” says Johan. “We have now completed this first milestone: the entire organization chart of the program. Currently, we are creating an inventory of what already exists in teacher profiles, teacher training, and palliative care training. Beginning next year, we will start developing the projects.”
Call for candidates
Do you have expertise in palliative care for cancer patients and would like to participate in this program? Please contact program manager Johan Joosse or program coordinator Christel Holwerda.
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Text by Henri van de Vrugt.
This article was created for Cancer Center Amsterdam.
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