Creating Interdisciplinary Engagement Through a Hospital-Based Endowed Chair in Nursing Research: The "Conway Chair Conversations".

Although clinical nurses' involvement in research is a role expectation, efforts to engage clinical nurses in nurse-led research have had notably mixed results. These efforts have most typically been single discipline-focused (nursing), although nursing care is a collaborative, interdisciplinary practice. Adding an interdisciplinary strategy to multiple other efforts to engage clinical nurses in research may contribute to more nurse involvement. Here, we describe the use of a hospital-based endowed chair in nursing research to simultaneously engage nursing and other disciplines in a monthly dialogue about clinically relevant, research-related challenges and solutions. Outcomes indicate that the research-related dialogue among nurses and interprofessional colleagues would likely not have taken place without this approach.

Integration of Pediatric Palliative Care Into Cardiac Intensive Care: A Champion-Based Model.

Integration of pediatric palliative care (PPC) into management of children with serious illness and their families is endorsed as the standard of care. Despite this, timely referral to and integration of PPC into the traditionally cure-oriented cardiac ICU (CICU) remains variable. Despite dramatic declines in mortality in pediatric cardiac disease, key challenges confront the CICU community. Given increasing comorbidities, technological dependence, lengthy recurrent hospitalizations, and interventions risking significant morbidity, many patients in the CICU would benefit from PPC involvement across the illness trajectory. Current PPC delivery models have inherent disadvantages, insufficiently address the unique aspects of the CICU setting, place significant burden on subspecialty PPC teams, and fail to use CICU clinician skill sets. We therefore propose a novel conceptual framework for PPC-CICU integration based on literature review and expert interdisciplinary, multi-institutional consensus-building. This model uses interdisciplinary CICU-based champions who receive additional PPC training through courses and subspecialty rotations. PPC champions strengthen CICU PPC provision by (1) leading PPC-specific educational training of CICU staff; (2) liaising between CICU and PPC, improving use of support staff and encouraging earlier subspecialty PPC involvement in complex patients' management; and (3) developing and implementing quality improvement initiatives and CICU-specific PPC protocols. Our PPC-CICU integration model is designed for adaptability within institutional, cultural, financial, and logistic constraints, with potential applications in other pediatric settings, including ICUs. Although the PPC champion framework offers several unique advantages, barriers to implementation are anticipated and additional research is needed to investigate the model's feasibility, acceptability, and efficacy.

A New Era in Pediatric Hospice Care for Military Families.

: This series on palliative care is developed in collaboration with the Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association (HPNA; https://advancingexpertcare.org). The HPNA aims to guide nurses in preventing and relieving suffering and in giving the best possible care to patients and families, regardless of the stage of disease or the need for other therapies. The HPNA offers education, certification, advocacy, leadership, and research.

Integrating the Comfort Theory™ Into Pediatric Primary Palliative Care to Improve Access to Care.

Primary palliative care improves access to symptom control and quality-of-life care for children and families and can reduce moral distress in clinicians. This article describes the application of a nursing theory framework for an evidence-based practice/quality improvement project that embedded pediatric primary palliative care into a hospital-based setting using unit-specific projects. An evidence-based practice/quality improvement project, guided by the Comfort Theory™, provided primary palliative care education and mentorship to improve knowledge, skills, and attitudes of direct care clinicians. Training consisted of didactic and self-directed learning, mentoring, and completion of unit-based projects to establish meaning and impact best practices and policies. A total of 149 direct care clinicians, comprising 3 cohorts, enrolled in the program. Improvements in interdisciplinary collaboration in care were demonstrated through 21 unit-based projects, the development of triggers for specialty palliative care consults in several high-risk populations, and the development of institutional guidelines for end-of-life care. The Comfort Theory™ guided integration of palliative care for children with serious illness and their families. This project empowered direct care clinicians in caring for patients, providing support to clinical staff, and in developing best practices.

Establishing Feasibility of Early Palliative Care Consultation in Pediatric Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation.

Children and adolescents undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) encounter a number of distressing physical symptoms and existential distress but may not be afforded timely access to palliative care services to help ameliorate the distress. This feasibility study investigated the acceptability and outcomes of early palliative care consultation to promote comfort in this population. A longitudinal, descriptive cohort design examined both provider willingness to refer and willingness of families to receive palliative care interventions as well as satisfaction. Feasibility was demonstrated by 100% referral of eligible patients and 100% of patient and family recruitment (N = 12). Each family received 1 to 3 visits per week (ranging from 15 to 120 minutes) from the palliative care team. Interventions included supportive care counseling and integrative therapies. Families and providers reported high satisfaction with the nurse-led palliative care consultation. Outcomes included improvement or no significant change in comfort across the trajectory of HSCT, from the child and parental perspective. Early integration of palliative care in HSCT is feasible and acceptable to families and clinicians.

Pediatric palliative care in childhood cancer nursing: from diagnosis to cure or end of life.

OBJECTIVES: To describe selected components of pediatric palliative care from diagnosis to cure or end of life that combine to help nurses and other clinicians achieve goals of care for children with cancer and their families. DATA SOURCES: Published articles. CONCLUSION: Pediatric palliative care is characterized by diversity of care delivery models; effect of cancer on the family as the central focus of care; and consideration of culture, spirituality, communication, and ethical standards. End-of-life issues that can be anticipated by nurses and other clinicians include symptoms of cancer or its treatment, the importance of hopefulness, the relevance of trying to be a good parent in decision making, the meaning of legacy making of ill children, and family bereavement. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING PRACTICE: Direct nursing care strategies to achieve pediatric palliative care goals are vital to reduce child and family suffering from cancer.

Collaborative clinical research on end-of-life care in pediatric oncology.

OBJECTIVES: To present an overview of research into end-of-life (EoL) care for pediatric patients with cancer and to describe research completed by a newly formed collaboration of researchers. DATA SOURCES: Professional group position papers and guidelines; research studies. CONCLUSION: Studies to date in pediatric EoL care used retrospective, descriptive, or pilot intervention designs, have been conducted in single-institution settings, and have included small numbers of patients. Most studies have explored perspectives of parents and health care professionals but have omitted the perspective of the dying child. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING PRACTICE: Advancing the science of EoL care will depend on intervention-based clinical trials that include the perspective of the dying child in addi tion to parents and health care professionals.