Palliative educational outcome with implementation of PEACE tool integrated clinical pathway

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Palliative Care
• Internal Medicine Training

Background:

• Physicians often lack foundational end-of-life care skills.
• Few studies assess educational interventions targeting physician learning strategies and practice modification in palliative care.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate an educational intervention aimed at improving internal medicine residents' end-of-life care competency.
• To assess the impact of an integrated, end-of-life clinical pathway (PEACE Tool) on resident knowledge.

Main Methods:

• A prospective controlled trial involving pre- and post-intervention surveys.
• Internal medicine residents (first, second, and third year) participated.
• The intervention group used the PEACE Tool; the control group received standard care.

Main Results:

• Pre-intervention knowledge scores were suboptimal across all resident years.
• The intervention group demonstrated a 46% higher mean knowledge score compared to the control group (p < 0.001).

Conclusions:

• A practice-based strategy, the PEACE Tool, significantly improved end-of-life care knowledge.
• Competency in end-of-life care was suboptimal despite positive attitudes.
• Standard training and experience yielded only slight factual knowledge improvement.