An interdisciplinary workshop to improve palliative care: Advanced heart failure— Clinical guidelines and healing words

Objective: Effective communication is recognized as an essential process to providing quality care, including palliative and end-of-life care. Discussion of prognosis and support needs of patients with heart failure is particularly challenging given the nature of the condition and care across several settings. The objective was to design, implement, and evaluate an interdisciplinary workshop aimed at improving attitudes and skills related to communication with patients and family, health team communication and documentation, and assessment of physical and emotional symptoms. Methods: A pretest, delayed posttest evaluation design was used to evaluate two 4-h workshops offered to nurses, social workers, and other nonphysician clinicians. Results: Although baseline reports of skills were high for the participants, significant improvement was noted for objectives emphasized in the workshop. Significance of results: This project demonstrated the feasibility of designing, marketing a brief workshop, and positively impacting communication and documentation skills.