Palliative Nursing Commons^™

Spirituality Education For End Of Life Clinicians: A Quality Improvement Project, Mark S. Valigorsky

DNP Projects

Significance and Background: The focus of this project was to strength the knowledge, comfort, and training of end of life(EOL) clinicians working with patients in the palliative care and hospice environments. While spirituality is considered one of the essential domains of hospice care, it is an area that is often brushed aside by staff and patients and their families. Spirituality is inadequately addressed due to knowledge deficits, time issues, and lack of self-efficacy. Addressing spiritual care is particularly important for patients with chronic and end stage illnesses. Patients and their families view spirituality as a way of coping with suffering. …

Implementation Of A Nurse Driven Palliative Care Consult: A Quality Improvement Project, Socnite Sebourne-Francis

DNP Projects

Background: Palliative care consult (PCC) is an approach that can improve the quality of life and symptom management of patients facing life-threatening illnesses. At a 20-bed medical oncology unit in Connecticut, patients with poor prognosis and worsening symptoms have high re-admission rates within 30 days of post-hospital discharge; yet healthcare providers fail to initiate PCC.

Purpose: This project hypothesizes how implementing a nurse-driven PCC on admission or hospital stays compared to the timing of a physician to a physician PCC improves a plan of care for oncology patients? Will it result in a decrease in 30-day re-admission rates? The …