ABSTRACT
Background: Across Europe palliative and end-of-life-care volunteer services (EOLC-VS) in the hospital setting are relatively uncommon, particularly for patients in the last weeks of life. The iLIVE Volunteer Study, one of 8 work-packages within the iLIVE Project, conducted an international Delphi study to develop a European Core Curriculum for EOLC-VC's, including associated training manuals. The ECC was designed to empower Volunteer Coordinators (VC's) to develop and implement EOLC-VS's in 5 hospitals in 5 countries, adapted to local cultural and organisational contexts. A case study to providing in-depth assessment of the facilitators and barriers in one hospital in the Netherlands has been undertaken (results reported elsewhere). Aim: To support Volunteer Coordinators (VC's) to initiate EOLC-VS's in 5 hospitals across 5 European countries. Methods: VC's attended a 3-day International Training Programme to examine and adapt the ECC implementation and training manuals to their individual organisational and cultural contexts. Due to COVID-19, virtual resources for support were engaged, including international networking sessions between EOLC volunteers and VC's. Structured feedback from VC's were collected at the 3-day training programme and throughout development, training of volunteers, and implementation of EOLC-VC's. Results: The ECC provided VC's with a practical guide to design and implement EOLC-VC's within the complex environment of a hospital. The supportive resources gave VC's an opportunity to share learning, facilitating a deeper understanding of the ECC, as well as enable the sharing of practical experiences during service development and implementation using the ECC. Conclusions: The ECC, with supportive resources, enabled successful implementation of hospital EOLC-VC's volunteer services across 5 countries. Further research to assess the use and experience of these services is now underway as part of the iLIVE Volunteer Study.
ABSTRACT
Background: Due to COVID-19, team has piloted new service of volunteers supporting patients/relatives isolated home using telephone and videocalls, with global good response to this initiative. The literature review shows no robust studies associating palliative care (PC) volunteering with new technologies (NT). Aims: The main goal is implementing and evaluating volunteer training programme in the use of NT (specifically smartphones and tablets) to support patients facing life-threatening illness and relatives. Specific objectives are: 1. Explore need and usefulness of NT from point of view of patients/relatives, volunteers and health care professionals (HCP) in PC and describe technological profile. 2. Design techvolunteer curriculum and implement techvolunteer training programme. 3. Implement techvolunteer programme within PC home care service and Inpatient unit and assess impact on care provided. Methods: Pilot study: 20 volunteers and 70 patients/relatives. Mix-methods design allows combining quantitative measures of implementation with in-depth qualitative data to provide detailed understanding intervention functioning on small scale. Pragmatic cluster randomized clinical trial to test efficacy (unit of randomization is the volunteer and unit of analysis is patient/relative). Before-after design to test effectiveness (volunteers and HCP satisfaction with intervention and its implementation). Cost-utility study. Interviews (individuals and groupal) with HPC, volunteers and key informants of patients/relatives to test the beginning need and usefulness of NT, and during implementation process to test changes and experiences. Intention to treat analysis. Conclusion: This study will bring real evidence toward NT integration as useful tool not only to facilitate communication between volunteers and patients/relatives, but also to turn NT into instruments support daily living and enhance care, when in the hands of trained tech-volunteers.
ABSTRACT
Background: iLIVE is an EU-H2020 funded study to assess end of life care in 13 countries. The iLIVE Volunteer Study (WP3) will evaluate the development, training and implementation of new Hospital Palliative Care Volunteer (HPCV) services for patients in the last month of life, in 5 countries. A European Core Curriculum (ECC) will guide HPCV service development, devised from the results of a recent WP3 Delphi study that identified 54 essential elements for service implementation and training. Aim: Describe a novel training programme developed for volunteer coordinators (VC's) in use of the ECC prior to developing their own HPCV services. Design, methods and approach: An educational psychologist with international experience in training volunteers developed the training programme, based in Experiential Learning Theory (ELT). The programme covered the two sections of the ECC: 1. ECC-A: 10-Step Model for development and implementation of HPCV services into a highly structured context (hospital) 2. ECC-B: training curriculum for HPCV's, including example training sessions and materials Training included plenaries, small group work, guided reflections and participant presentations. Programme evaluation was gained through participant feedback. Results: 10 participants from 5 countries attended the 3 day training programme. Feedback received was positive and highlighted the following themes: •The programme provided valuable opportunity for shared learning •Ongoing reflection via ELT facilitated understanding of the ECC •A focus on training methodology (including sample training materials) highlighted as valuable Conclusions: The programme provided a structured, theory-based approach, which facilitated understanding of the ECC, empowering VC's to develop their own HPCV services, and train volunteers to support patients at the end of life. Recent challenges with COVID-19 will impact design and delivery of these services. iLIVE WP3 will evaluate these HPCV services in 5 countries.