Project Management Discussion and Proposal

Project idea

Palliative care in nursing refers to care provided to the patients of all ages with a life-threatening illness, or those with chronic illness. The care aims to provide the needed comfort to such patients as well as improving their life (Smith et al. 2012). In the United States, the greater part of the population is composed of the senior citizen who has one or more chronic diseases. Such patients require a continued care since aren't able to carry out their daily needs. Patients with diseases such as Alzheimer's, HIV/AIDS, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, kidney failure, congestive heart disease as well as cancer may need such kind of care (Wiener et al. 2015). Palliative care is an emerging area of nursing and is different from hospice care. It involves carrying out evidence-based approaches that are aimed at improving the needs as well as the health of such patients (Quill and Abernethy, 2013). Most medical students in the United States can undertake palliative care programs aimed enabling them to gain knowledge on how to take care of patients with various chronic as well as life-threatening illness.

In most healthcare organizations, systems aren't put in place to ensure that new staff is educated on ways to carry out palliative care to different types of patients. Healthcare organization, therefore, need to initiate the compulsory education program aimed at educating new staff on ways to carry out palliative care to different types of patients (Van der Steen et al. 2014). This is critical in ensuring that this group of patients is provided with the needed care to improve their healthcare outcome (Gamondi et al. 2013). Additionally, it will ensure that such healthcare organizations can provide quality healthcare service to these groups of patients. Implementation of such program is an example of the evidence based approach that is mandated in improving the health outcome of these groups of patients.

Justification of project idea

In the United States, palliative care is well established in hospice and hospitals. Studies suggest that future work in this form of care need to develop quality metrics as well as enabling the creation of models that facilitate the provision of these services extensively (Lynch et al. 2013). With the rise of chronic illness as well as life-threatening conditions such as stroke and diseases of the heart, palliative care has become an important care that should be provided well (Maltoni et al. 2012). This is because patients suffering from this form of illness needs to take care of to live a quality life. With continued shortage of healthcare professionals in both the private and public healthcare systems in the United States, the available healthcare personnel doesn't understand how to carry out the needed care adequately and efficiently. It is thus essential to ensure that new staff is well trained on how to carry out palliative care. This is critical in ensuring that such nurses understand the importance as well as the need of carrying out palliative care effectively and efficiently. This way, the quality of life, as well as the health outcome of the patients with chronic illness as well as those who are terminally ill, will be improved effectively and efficiently. Recent findings suggest that in the United States, the provision of palliative care has been influenced by public-private free-for services reimbursement system according to Morrison (2013). Morrison (2013) found that estimated 46 percent of the adults are provided with end-of-life care under Medicate hospice benefits (Orloff, 2011). Irrespective of prognosis, in most hospital, palliative teas have expanded to provide the care to patients who are terminally ill. Morrison (2013), found that over 85percent of the mid-large hospital has expanded to provide the needed palliative care to patients who are terminally ill. The finding further suggests that there is a need to ensure that healthcare professionals are well trained to provide palliative care to the patients.

The objectives

• To ensure adoption of the compulsory educative program during the orientation of new staff in hospital settings.
• To ensure that new staff can learn and understand the importance of carrying out palliative care.

Stakeholder

The healthcare administrator needs to be informed the importance of the program as well as ways in which the program can help improve the quality of life. Other stakeholders that need to be informed include healthcare professionals on the importance of such program. This can be done via the use of internal memo.

Critical Questions

• What is palliative care and what is the scope of the given care?
• What is importance of palliative care in healthcare organizations?
• How is palliative care carried out in a given healthcare organization?
• What are challenges facing the execution of palliative care in healthcare organizations?
• What is the approach that needs to be taken into consideration in addressing the challenges?
• Are nurses as well as other healthcare professionals trained on how to carry out a palliative care in healthcare organizations?
• Is there ongoing research being carried out pertaining the palliative care?

The above questions will enable determination of how palliative care is carried out in different healthcare organizations. The evaluation of such questions can determine the important or rather the impact of establishing compulsory educative programs aimed at orienting new staff on the importance as well as ways of carrying out putative care.

Reference

Gamondi, C., Larkin, P. and Payne, S., 2013. Core competencies in palliative care: an EAPC white paper on palliative care education: part 2.? European Journal of palliative care. Maltoni, M., Scarpi, E., Rosati, M., Derni, S., Fabbri, L., Martini, F., Amadori, D. and Nanni, O., 2012. Palliative sedation in end-of-life care and survival: a systematic review.? Journal of Clinical Oncology,? 30(12), pp.1378-1383. Quill, T.E. and Abernethy, A.P., 2013. Generalist plus specialist palliative care”creating a more sustainable model.? New England Journal of Medicine,? 368(13), pp.1173-1175. Smith, T.J., Temin, S., Alesi, E.R., Abernethy, A.P., Balboni, T.A., Basch, E.M., Ferrell, B.R., Loscalzo, M., Meier, D.E., Paice, J.A. and Peppercorn, J.M., 2012. American Society of Clinical Oncology provisional clinical opinion: the integration of palliative care into standard oncology care.? Journal of clinical oncology,? 30(8), pp.880-887. Van der Steen, J.T., Radbruch, L., Hertogh, C.M., de Boer, M.E., Hughes, J.C., Larkin, P., Francke, A.L., J?nger, S., Gove, D., Firth, P. and Koopmans, R.T., 2014. White paper defining optimal palliative care in older people with dementia: a Delphi study and recommendations from the European Association for Palliative Care.? Palliative medicine,? 28(3), pp.197-209. Wiener, L., Weaver, M.S., Bell, C.J. and Sansom-Daly, U.M., 2015. Threading the cloak: palliative care education for care providers of adolescents and young adults with cancer.? Clinical oncology in adolescents and young adults,? 5, p.1. Lynch, T., Connor, S. and Clark, D., 2013. Mapping levels of palliative care development: a global update. Journal of pain and symptom management,? 45(6), pp.1094-1106. Morrison, R. S. (2013). Models of palliative care delivery in the United States.? Current Opinion in Supportive and Palliative Care,? 7(2), 201“206. https://doi.org/10.1097/SPC.0b013e32836103e5 Orloff,? S.? F. (2011). Pediatric Palliative Care in the United States of America.? Pediatric Palliative Care: Global Perspectives, 359-376. doi:10.1007/978-94-007-2570-6_20

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