Serious Illness Communication Tool for Palliative Care Fellows: Development, Implementation, and Lessons Learned.

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Palliative Care
• Communication Skills Training

Background:

• Effective communication is crucial in palliative care, but specialized educational tools for fellows are scarce.
• Palliative care training emphasizes communication expertise, yet resources for developing these skills are limited.
• There is a need for targeted educational interventions to enhance serious illness communication among palliative care specialists.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and implement a novel formative assessment tool for hospice and palliative medicine fellows.
• To facilitate the learning of serious illness communication skills within a fellowship program.
• To evaluate the effectiveness and user experience of a new communication training tool.

Main Methods:

• A formative assessment tool was created and used weekly in the UCLA Palliative Care Fellowship.
• Focus groups with fellows and faculty were conducted for qualitative feedback.
• Thematic analysis was applied to focus group transcripts to identify key insights.

Main Results:

• The tool helped identify learning goals, improve feedback quality, and standardize communication terminology.
• Most benefits were observed in the first half of the fellowship year.
• Certain features, like competency scoring and frequent use, increased feedback anxiety.

Conclusions:

• The novel tool aids specialist palliative care providers in serious illness communication training.
• It establishes a shared framework for skills and generates specific learning objectives and feedback.
• Pilot feedback suggests refinements to mitigate feedback anxiety and optimize tool effectiveness.