Optimizing palliative care education nationwide: a practice example from The Netherlands

Abstract

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 (O 2 PZ), was established to improve palliative care education on a national level. Objectives: The main task of the O 2 PZ 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 O 2 PZ 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 O 2 PZ 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.