October: Palliative Care Resource Team Earns National Honor

Sarasota Memorial’s Palliative Care RN Resource Team was one of just four programs to earn a gold award in “The Tipping Point Challenge,” a prestigious national competition honoring health care organizations that are taking an “innovative and groundbreaking approach” to improving care for people living with a serious illness.

Sponsored by the Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC) and The John A. Hartford Foundation, the recent Tipping Point Challenge was open to all health care organizations, settings, disciplines and specialties across the U.S. The challenge had more than 100 submissions. Each entry was rigorously peer-reviewed by an expert panel and evaluated using five criteria: Impact, Evidence-Base, Feasibility, Scalability and Sustainability.

Sarasota Memorial’s entry featured the Primary Palliative Care RN Resource Team, a program developed in recent years to extend the reach of palliative care across the health system. The result of a partnership between SMH’s oncology and nursing leaders and the hospital’s Supportive Care Team (Palliative Care), the resource team seeks to create a force of strong RN Palliative Resource mentors in every area of the hospital, using online resources, in-person education and support from the established Supportive Care staff.

The team deploys unit-based, specially trained clinical RN specialists to help guide their floor nurse colleagues in caring for patients with advanced chronic disease or in end-of-life situations. Team members provide bedside RNs with the skills and confidence needed to create a positive patient care experience that’s guided by symptom management, along with a clearer understanding of the patient’s goals and values.

Click here for more information about our Tipping Point Challenge entry.