Palliative Care - An Ideal Environment for Interprofessional Education and Practice

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Palliative care involves an interprofessional collaborative approach in working with patients and their families and caregivers by providing patient-centered and individualized pain relief compassion, caring, and overall minimization of symptom severity. Because palliative care patients most often also have one or more chronic illnesses, the need for the interprofessional practice model is even more important. This type of collaborative care is often referred to as “comfort” care or “end-of-life” care, with the focus being on improving quality of life for both the patient, family, and both family and non-family caregivers. This paper discusses palliative care and the importance of it in the interprofessional education of students in the educational pipeline and of professionals for ongoing effective practice in addition to the interprofessional education of students placed under their supervision during practicums and clinical supervision. There has been a paucity of research specifically in the area focused on the interprofessional proponent in the palliative care setting. A thorough literature review was conducted to analyze the unique components of palliative care that make it an ideal setting for the interprofessional team-building model. Given the increased emphasis on interprofessional education over the past five years with the establishment of the Core Competencies for Interprofessional (IPE) Collaborative Practice, the incorporation of interprofessional education standards into over 60 professional health education organizations, and the need to increase the clinical training and active participation for students in interprofessional settings, palliative care should be utilized more in educational settings as a primary interprofessional education environment for learning about the interprofessional core competences through active involvement of students, practitioners, patients, family members, and caregivers. Although the literature is limited in relationship to Interprofessional education and practice in palliative care, it is clear that palliative care emphasizes a focus on both the patient and family and provides an ideal interprofessional environment including but not limited to physical, social, emotional, and spiritual care. Interprofessional care is integral in palliative care. Additionally, the high risk of burnout among professionals in palliative care further suggests the need for interprofessionalism and integration of IPE core competences in both preservice and continuing education. IPE can build resilience among professionals, family members, and caregivers. While the interprofessional proponent is critical to the outcomes of palliative care, the resilience of team members must be taken into consideration. These findings need to be further developed so that interprofessional care in palliative care settings is used more extensively to prepare students and practicing professionals in interprofessional patient-centered care. The clinical component of interprofessional education is most often lacking in student education. Palliative care environments can help in developing interprofessional leaders for the entire health care delivery system. In addition, there is a need to collect ongoing outcomes data related to the Interprofessional outcomes resulting from effective collaborative care delivery in the palliative care setting. A meta review of the literature was implemented to review the peer-reviewed literature and other professional publications of the past 20 years (1996-2016) to examine the role of palliative care in interprofessional education and practice for professionals and for students in the academic pipeline.