Palliative Care to the People: Partnering with a Patient Experience Department to Raise Awareness of Palliative Care in the Community (T315D)

• Published in: Journal of pain and symptom management 2021-03, Vol.61 (3), p.647-647
• Main Authors: Smith, Grant M., Bragg, Ashley, Bleymaier, Claire R., Mirkin, Rachelle A., Harman, Stephanie M.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Community organizations; Internet; Intervention; Lectures; Palliative care; Pandemics; Partnerships; Patients; Public speaking; Social media; Social networks; Teams
• ISSN: 0885-3924; 1873-6513
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jpainsymman.2021.01.025

Objectives 1. Describe the development and implementation of a novel partnership between a clinical department of palliative care and a department of patient experience. 2. Describe a systematic approach to developing, implementing, and evaluating a multifaceted strategy to improve palliative care awareness in the community. 3. Identify novel ways to increase awareness of palliative care in the community. Original Research Background Over 70% of U.S. adults have never heard of palliative care (PC). Of those who have heard of PC, less than 40% know what it is and can explain it to someone else. Lack of awareness and inadequate knowledge of PC are barriers to accessing PC services. Research Objectives As part of a collaboration between our clinical department of palliative care and department of patient experience, we developed, implemented, and evaluated a multifaceted intervention to increase awareness about PC in the community surrounding our suburban academic medical center. Methods Our intervention included 1) developing a web-based and social media presence, 2) hosting public-facing lectures and webinars, and 3) developing partnerships with community organizations. To measure our impact, we monitored exposure (number of individuals who viewed our content), engagement (number of individuals who participated in an event), number of community partnerships, and likelihood to recommend scores measured by a 5-point Likert scale. Results Over the course of 8 months, we launched a website, started a Twitter account, and posted 5 recorded lectures on YouTube. We facilitated 23 lectures, webinars, or small group discussions that included both in-person and virtual events. We developed partnerships with 2 community agencies. To date, 6870 individuals have been exposed to our content and 22% (N=1509) of those individuals engaged further by participating in an event. Of those who participated, 86% (N=1298) participated in a virtual event held during the coronavirus pandemic. Our average likelihood to recommend score was 4.2 (SD 1.3), correlating to "likely" to recommend. Conclusion and Implications for Research, Policy, or Practice Partnering with a patient experience department provided our clinical PC team with the outreach expertise needed to rapidly expand our reach in raising awareness of PC in the community. Further investigation of these efforts will include evaluating changes in participants' knowledge and attitudes about PC.