Short summary

Studies have shown that healthcare professional working in nursing homes have an educational gap in their knowledge about basic palliative care.

Rationale

People live longer with life-threatening diseases, which is why palliative care plays a greater and more decisive role in the society and healthcare system than ever before. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), palliative care is provided to improve quality of life for patients regardless of diagnosis at the end of life with a primary focus on symptom relief. Palliative care is divided into basic palliative care (BPC) and specialized palliative care (SPC), where the complexity of the symptom determines whether the care is basic or specialized. BPC is often provided at home, during hospitalization or in nursing homes by healthcare professional who do not have competence in SPC. SPC is often provided at home by specialist palliative care team, in specialized palliative wards or in hospice. WHO emphasizes that the greatest increase in the need for palliative care in the future will be older people, which is why nursing homes have become a major arena for the provision of palliative care. The number of older people with health-related suffering is increasing rapidly with 22 million more people in 2060 than in 2016. Furthermore, the number of adults aged 85 years and older is expected to increase by 351% between 2010 and 2050. There is a worldwide urgency to improve BPC for the elderly, which places demands on the ability of health care professionals to provide BPC. A cross-sectional survey study in six European countries has shown that healthcare professionals working in nursing home have a suboptimal knowledge of BPC and need educational improvements. Telemedicine has gained increasing popularity in recent years and is an approach that involves the use of information and communication technologies to deliver medical care, which has shown promise in improving quality in end-of-life care in nursing homes. Telemedicine is an umbrella term that covers various situations, such as teleconsultation, tele-expertise, or tele monitoring from either clinician-to-patient or clinician-to-clinician. Several studies have shown that healthcare professional working in nursing homes have an educational gap in their knowledge about BPC and need support in ethical and existential issues in their conversations about death in end-of life care for people living in nursing homes. To our knowledge, no studies have clarified healthcare professionals experience receiving teaching in BPC followed by telemedicine conferences guided by healthcare professionals working with SPC. The above highlights the need for further research to address how healthcare professionals, who are working in nursing homes, experience teaching in BPC with subsequent telemedicine conferences, and how this affects their competences in providing BPC. The overall purpose of this study is to explore nursing homes healthcare professionals experience of receiving teaching and subsequent telemedicine conference, focusing on how the interventions affects their experience of competence in providing BPC. - How do healthcare professionals in nursing homes experience that teaching in BPC and subsequent telemedicine conferences affects their competences in providing PBC?

Description of the cohort

Healthcare professionals working at two specific nursing homes on Funen.

Data and biological material

Data is collected from focus group interviews and questionnaires.

Collaborating researchers and departments

Palliative Care Unit, Department of Oncology, Odense University Hospital

• Katrine Rahbek Schønnemann, MD, PhD.