Overcoming Geographical Barriers: A Distance Mediated Interdisciplinary Palliative Care Seminar

• Published in: Journal of pain and symptom management 2024-05, Vol.67 (5), p.e514-e514
• Main Authors: Gierach, Michelle, Mollman, Sarah, Sedlacek, Amanda K., Tenenbaum, Leah, Grosdidier, Morgan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0885-3924
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jpainsymman.2024.02.278

1. Participants will describe salient strategies of how to deliver an interdisciplinary palliative care seminar to students using diverse pedagogy and across rural settings. 2. Participants will describe the impact an interdisciplinary palliative care seminar has on students’ perceptions of collaborative practice measured with the Interprofessional Socialization and Valuing 9-item parallel equivalent forms. A national interdisciplinary palliative care team has successfully developed a seminar to deliver uniform education that prepares interprofessional students for collaborative practice as measured by the Interprofessional Socialization and Valuing Scale (ISVS). This pedagogy has evolved to be distance mediated to overcome geographical barriers in a primarily rural area. A gold standard of palliative and hospice care is interdisciplinary teams delivering quality patient and family-centered care; thus, educating interprofessional students for collaborative practice is essential. Diverse pedagogy is utilized by providing in-person patient encounters alongside live and virtual interactive sessions to over 250 students across 400 miles annually. The Interdisciplinary Palliative Care (IPC) Seminar provides evidence-based, uniform education to 7 disciplines, ranging from undergraduate through post-graduate students. While a previous in-person IPC Seminar showed that it positively influenced participants’ perceptions of interprofessional socialization and valuing1, hybrid delivery had not been studied. 1) evaluate the participants’ change in perceptions of interprofessional teamwork and collaboration after participating in the IPC Seminar to determine collaborative practice readiness and 2) analyze the hybrid delivery of the IPC Seminar. Participants completed an online survey of the Interprofessional Socialization and Valuing Scale (ISVS)2 pre-post IPC Seminar. Data was analyzed using a 2-sample t-test assuming equal variances. The hybrid IPC Seminar demonstrated significant impact (p < .0001) on interprofessional socialization and valuing scores with participants (pre n = 248; post n = 173) valuing interprofessional aspects of collaborative practice more after completing the seminar. This is consistent with previous finding when the IPC Seminar was delivered in-person1. The hybrid delivery model mediates distance by utilizing diverse pedagogies. Given these outcomes, this delivery model may be reproducible for other areas with barriers to educational access, s