Lynn O'Neill

Geritalk: Communication Skills Training for Geriatric and Palliative Medicine Fellows

Expert communication is essential to high‐quality care for older patients with serious illness. Although the importance of communication skills is widely recognized, formal curricula for teaching communication skills to geriatric and palliative medicine fellows is often inadequate or unavailable. The current study drew upon the educational principles and format of an evidence‐based, interactive teaching method to develop an intensive communication skills training course designed specifically to address the common communication challenges that geriatric and palliative medicine fellows face. The 2‐day retreat, held away from the hospital environment, included large‐group overview presentations, small‐group communication skills practice, and development of future skills practice commitment. Faculty received in‐depth training in small‐group facilitation techniques before the course. Geriatric and palliative medicine fellows were recruited to participate in the course and 100% (n = 18) enrolled. Overall satisfaction with the course was very high (mean 4.8 on a 5‐point scale). After the course, fellows reported an increase in self‐assessed preparedness for specific communication challenges (mean increase 1.4 on 5‐point scale, P < .001). Two months after the course, fellows reported a high level of sustained skills practice (mean 4.3 on 5‐point scale). In sum, the intensive communication skills program, customized for the specific needs of geriatric and palliative medicine fellows, improved fellows’ self‐assessed preparedness for challenging communication tasks and provided a model for ongoing deliberate practice of communication skills.

Giving Feedback to Palliative Care Learners (522)

Quality Data Collection Tool (QDACT) in the Carolinas Palliative Care Consortium, the Palliative Care Outcomes Collaboration (PCOC) in Australia, and the Palliative Care Research Cooperative (PCRC) have contributed valuable lessons for creating data collection systems embedded in day-to-day practice to inform quality and research. Based upon these experiences, we will outline the necessary stepsdfrom idea to implementationdfor building a data collection culture, creating systems and processes for collecting and analyzing data, and producing reports to meet the diverse needs and perspectives of our provider and patient populations. Ultimately, we will discuss how to drive improved patient care by measuring and understanding performance.

Geritalk: Using Deliberate Skills Practice in Communication Skills Training (302)

Objectives 1. Identify new evidence from 2011 that was published outside the palliative care literature but is meaningful to hospice and palliative care clinical practice. 2. Recognize the PC-FACS publication from AAHPM and the potential role it has in his/her own clinical practice. Clinicians on the frontline of practice must stay up-to-date with the evidence in order to provide competent best care to patients. Yet the volume of potentially relevant studies that could better inform palliative care providers in hospitals, outpatient programs, long-term care facilities, community practices, and hospices is vast and rapidly expanding. Palliative CaredFast Article Critical Summaries (PC-FACS) is an AAHPM publication designed to help busy clinicians stay on top of current best evidence relevant to contemporary practice of palliative medicine. Because most clinicians endeavor to keep abreast of developments published in palliative care-specific journals, PC-FACS focuses on innovative, highquality, timely, and relevant studies that appear in 85 medical and scientific journals outside the bounds of traditional palliative care literature. High-quality articles are selected by a panel of expert associate editors, who together scour a broad cross-section of the medical literature ranging from peer-reviewed general medical journals (eg, JAMA, New England Journal of Medicine) to discipline-specific literature (eg, Journal of the American Geriatric Society, American Journal of Cardiology), specialized literature (eg, Journal of Advanced Nursing, Mayo Clinic Proceedings), basic sciences (eg, Nature, Science, Molecular Pain), and health policy (eg, Health Affairs). In a convenient, electronic, bi-weekly, digest format, concise summaries of the most relevant, newsworthy articles are presented with brief expert commentary tailored to the evidence needs of the practicing palliative care and hospice clinician. During 2011, PC-FACS will review approximately 130 pertinent articles which might have escaped the notice of evidence-conscious clinicians. This session will spotlight the PC-FACS ‘‘best evidence of 2011,’’ providing insight into emerging research and its incorporation into the current body of palliative care evidence guiding practice. New features in this year include periodic highlighting of palliative care-relevant policy articles and review articles of particular importance to palliative care clinicians.

Peer Mentoring: An Innovative Model for Professional Advancement in Hospice and Palliative Medicine (320)

Peer Mentoring: An Innovative Model for Professional Advancement in Hospice and Palliative Medicine (320) Rachelle Bernacki, MD MS, Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA. Sandra SanchezReilly, MD, University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio and STVHCS, San Antonio, TX. Elise Carey, MD, Mayo Clinic Rochester, Rochester, MN. Jane DeLima Thomas, MD, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA. Jen Kapo, MD, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA. Laura Morrison, MD, Baylor College of Medicine and The Methodist Hospital, Houston, TX. VJ Periyakoil, MD, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA. Lynn O’Neill, MD, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY. (All speakers have disclosed no relevant financial relationships.)