| Abstrakt: |
Background: Every healthcare professional (HCP) in the Netherlands is expected to provide palliative care based on their initial education. This requires national consensus and clarity on the quality and goals of palliative care education and accessible education opportunities nationwide. These requirements were not met in the Netherlands, posing a major obstacle to improving the organization and delivery of palliative care. Therefore, a program, Optimizing Education and Training in Palliative Care (O2PZ), was established to improve palliative care education on a national level. Objectives: The main task of the O2PZ program from 2018 to 2021 was to implement and improve palliative care education in initial education for nursing and medical professionals. The program's ultimate goal was that every HCP be sufficiently educated to provide high-quality generalist palliative care. Design: The O2PZ program consists of four projects to improve and consolidate generalist palliative care education nationwide. Methods: All projects used a participatory approach, that is, participatory development, implementation, and co-creation with stakeholders, mainly HCPs and education developers. Appreciative inquiry was used to assess, improve, and integrate existing local palliative care education initiatives. Results: (1) Establishment of an Education Framework for palliative care for all HCPs, including an interprofessional collaboration model; (2) optimization of palliative care education in the (initial) curricula of vocational education institutions and (applied) universities; (3) establishment of an online platform to disseminate materials to improve palliative care education; and (4) installment of seven regional palliative care education hubs, of which one hub was devoted to pediatric palliative care, as well as one national hub. Discussion: We discuss some lessons learned and challenges in accomplishing the goals of the O2PZ program in 2018–2021 and address how these challenges were dealt with. We maintain that co-creation with stakeholders at policy, organizational, and operational levels, as well as ongoing communication and collaboration, is essential to consolidating and implementing results. Conclusion: Over the past 4 years, we have improved generalist palliative care education nationwide for all HCPs through four projects in which we collaborated closely with stakeholders. This has resulted in more attention to and implementation of palliative care in education, a national Education Framework for palliative care, including an interprofessional collaboration model, an online platform for palliative care education, and palliative care education hubs covering all regions of the Netherlands. Plain language summary: Optimizing palliative care education in The Netherlands The innovative aspect of this article is that we explored how a national program called "Optimizing Education and Training in Palliative Care" (O2PZ), which was funded by the Dutch government, was installed. The program was led by an interdisciplinary and interprofessional group of educators, HCPs, and researchers from several institutions in the Netherlands. The encompassing aim of the O2PZ program is that every HCP in the Netherlands has the right competencies to provide high-quality palliative care and that there will be more regional and national direction with regard to providing good palliative care education for all healthcare professionals. Our article will address several interconnected projects and results from the O2PZ program in 2018–2021. This includes (1) A comprehensive national Education Framework for Palliative Care (with a model of interprofessional collaboration), (2) Optimizing Palliative Care education, (3) An online education platform, and (4) A network of regional "education hubs" with nationwide coverage. Several lessons can be learned from these efforts to develop, implement, and consolidate palliative care education nationwide. We will also discuss some significant challenges and how they were dealt with effectively. This may be useful to others who seek to improve palliative care education in their country. Finally, we will address current follow-up studies to elaborate on and consolidate the results and impact of the 2018–2021 program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
