| Abstract: |
During end of life care, the health care team not only cares for the patient, but also the patient's family members. Both the World Health Organization and the Clinical Practice Guidelines for Quality Palliative Care consider care of the bereaved family members an integral part of palliative care. However, bereavement practices, specifically the act of writing a letter of condolence, have declined drastically in the modern health care system. While the primary goal of writing a letter of condolence is to support bereaved family members, studies have also found that this act positively impacts the health care provider, helping staff through the grieving process, providing closure, and preventing burnout. The purpose of this project is to standardize the process of writing letters of condolence and provide the education and resources for staff to incorporate this practice into their workflow. We piloted this project on a medical oncology floor. We provided educational in-services to staff (RNs, PCTs, Unit Assistants) and provided all necessary resources (cardstock, envelopes). Staff receive a bi-weekly report via email of any patient that was admitted to the floor within the last two weeks and has a death notice in the chart at the time the report was generated. We are evaluating staff via surveys at numerous intervals including pre-education, post-education, and 1, 2, and 6 months post-implementation to evaluate actual use, willingness to use, staff satisfaction, and disruption in workflow. Diverse bereavement practices have been noted not only among different hospitals, but also between units within the same hospital and even providers within the same department. Due to these inconsistencies, objective data is greatly lacking for both health care workers' and bereaved relatives' experiences with sending and receiving a letter of condolence, respectively. We hope that our project can contribute to the evidence, specifically within the oncologic population. We recognize that health care providers are much less likely to partake in bereavement practices due to a lack of training in medical and nursing schools and thus a lack of confidence in one's ability or role in the setting of death. In an effort to improve compliance, we have standardized the practice by providing guidelines on the content of the letters. |
