Enhancing end-of-life care in nursing homes: Palliative Care Educational Resource Team (PERT) program.
BACKGROUND
By the middle of this century, approximately 40% of people who will die from chronic illness are expected to do so in a nursing home. This trend will create challenges for nursing homes to ensure that staff possess the necessary knowledge and skills to care for dying residents.


OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this paper is to describe the development and evaluation of a comprehensive curriculum called Palliative Care Educational Resource Team (PERT), which is designed to enhance end-of-life (EOL) abilities of nursing assistants and licensed nurses working in nursing homes.


METHODS
Sixty-one nursing assistants and 108 licensed nursing staff from 44 facilities have participated in PERT. Subjects were recruited in three successive cohorts, each targeting a different geographic area.


METHODS
Program evaluation included multiple tools evaluating participants' knowledge, skills, and confidence in providing EOL care.


RESULTS
Evaluation of outcomes revealed significant increases in EOL knowledge, self-evaluation of EOL skills, and supervisors' evaluations of participants' EOL care.


CONCLUSIONS
These results show that the PERT Program is an effective means to enhance the palliative care expertise of nursing home staff. In addition to describing the PERT program and its evaluation, suggestions for implementing similar programs are included in this paper.
Ersek
Mary
M
Pain Research Department, Swedish Medical Center, Seattle, Washington 98122-5711, USA. mary.ersek@swedish.org
Grant
Marcia M
MM
Kraybill
Beth Miller
BM
D015331:Cohort Studies; D003479:Curriculum; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009735:Nursing Homes; D009740:Nursing Staff / Q000193:education*; D010166:Palliative Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D013727:Terminal Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D017749:Total Quality Management