Effective End-of-Life Care Management
End-of-Life care refers to a compassionate, active approach that comforts, treats, and supports those suffering chronic life conditions. APRNs are educationally prepared to care for dying or seriously ill patients facing clinical conditions that inevitably comprise of intense human suffering. APRNs can work in a palliative care which comprises of both the secondary and tertiary palliative care. FNPs are required to have completed a nursing bachelor’s degree or an accredited nursing program. Then, one is certified through the NCLEX-RN exam to become a registered nurse (RN). With an experience as a registered nurse, the advanced practice is acquired after completing a master’s degree, but the doctorate degree (DNP) is the terminal degree in nursing practice. Thus, those who practice in palliative care have a specialist education and certification.
Moreover, nursing schools and institutions will incorporate palliative care precepts into the curriculum to improve knowledge of end-of-life and enhance confidence for providers caring for patients under chronic condition. The education content is designed to build skill in this area of nursing that encompasses numerous aspects of care including symptom and pain management, helping patients and their families through the dying process, and recognize culturally sensitive practices. The American Association of College of Nursing (AACN) and the City of Hope Medical Center created the End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium (ELNEC) course to build skill in the palliative care (Ferrell, Malloy & Virani, 2015). This course educates nurses and physicians on chronic care to improve attention on dying patients and meet their distinctive needs. The ELNEC resources will be available vital to overcome barriers in healthcare practice, particularly palliative care.
Hence, more palliative care education should be included in the undergraduate nursing curricula to manage pain, symptoms, and aid in decision making for those with serious illness. Providing adequate knowledge of primary and secondary palliative care will produce confident and competent nurses. The quality of care provided to the critically ill depends on the nurses’ skills and knowledge in the management of pain and end-of-life care. Therefore, through palliative education, nurses will overcome barriers to healthcare and they will learn to provide specialty care and expertise. Schroeder and Lorenz (2018) argue that expertise nursing decreases the burdens and distress of the dying patients, it enables nurses to provide care including spiritual patients’ need, psychological, physical, and social support to the patients and their families.
References
Ferrell, B., Malloy, P., & Virani, R. (2015). The end of life nursing education nursing consortium project. Annals of palliative medicine, 4(2), 61-69.
Schroeder, K., & Lorenz, K. (2018). Nursing and the future of palliative care. Asia-Pacific journal of oncology nursing, 5(1), 4.
DISCUSSION #2 (white)
Concerns about poor quality at the end of life are becoming prevalent. For this reason, the American nurses association position (ANAP) is endeavoring to address the issue by making recommendations to improve management of end of life through nurses’ practice, education, research, and administration. This paper assesses how APRN can provide effective care by encouraging the participation of family and friends, integrating evidence-based care, pursuing certification, and providing palliative care. The paper culminates in providing a personal point of view regarding the post.
Nursing practice can encourage patients and families to participate in making healthcare decisions to enhance the quality of end of life. Decisions include advance directives that offer the patient an opportunity to communicate with the nurses about their priorities at this critical stage of life (Bolt, Hagens, Williams, & Onwuteaka-Philipsen, 2015). This initiative is especially important while the patient might be unable to talk at that time. Clear, concise communication is important for completion of comprehensive care plan documents. Physician and other healthcare professionals, therefore, can refer to written medical orders of the patients in order to provide care that aligns with his or her preferences.
ANAP focus on research proposes that evidence-based care practices can be adopted in the management of end of life. Evidence-based practice can identify and address early signs of the end of life. The available evidence should be first scrutinized to determine its viability and accuracy before being applied to the patient. As such, evidence-based practices are devoid of errors and inconsistencies because they are based on the best current evidence decisions.
In education, nurses in advanced palliative care can specialize and acquire certification. Nurses should acquire accreditation from such bodies as Palliative Credentialing Centre after which they gain capacity and authority to offer end of life service at the various levels of care. Specialization and certification validate knowledge, experience, and skills of a nurse in promoting professionalism and competency. This initiative, therefore, is indispensable in ascertaining that only the eligible nurses provide critical care.
In administration, ANAP recommends making palliative care available to patients in critical conditions of illness from the time they are diagnosed. Nurses can improve the patients’ and their families’ quality of life by providing basic symptom management through early identifications and assessment of possible treatments (Seow & Bainbridge 2018). In effect, the quality of life improves, leading to a longer life while, at the same time, providing support.
References
Bolt, E. E., Hagens, M., Williams, D., & Onwuteaka-Philipsen, B. D. (2015). Primary care patients hastening death by voluntarily stopping eating and drinking. The Annals of Family Medicine, 13(5), 421-428.
Ewertowski, H., Tetzlaff, F., Stiel, S., Schneider, N., & Jünger, S. (2018). Primary palliative care in general practice – study protocol of a three-stage mixed-methods organizational health services research study. BMC Palliative Care, 17(1)
Seow, H., & Bainbridge, D. (2018). A review of the essential components of quality palliative care in the home. Journal of Palliative Medicine, 21(S1).
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