Partnering with nurses to update the CareSearch Nurses Hub

A blog post written by Susan Gravier

There are many benefits of an online resource. One of the most important of these is the ability to easily keep the resource up to date and relevant. This year, the CareSearch Nurses Hub was reviewed, expanded, and updated.

The CareSearch Nurses Hub provides online practical support for nurses to deliver best-practice palliative care. With the demand for palliative care increasing and nurses providing a significant portion of palliative care, both as generalists and specialists, it is important that the information and resources available to them are fit for purpose.

The evidence in palliative care is at the heart of CareSearch content. So are quality processes that underpin the development and re-development of content. Partnering with experts is also a key part of our process and for this project, we worked with a steering committee of six nurses from aged care, community, acute, and rural and remote sectors. A larger group of nurses drawn from across Australia also provided valuable insights and advice; these nurses had responded to a call for an expression of interest. In short, we started with the evidence and worked with nurses to create a resource for nurses.

Our review process began in March with a rapid scan of the literature to explore the role and responsibilities of nurses providing care for people at or approaching the end of their life. We wanted to know what nurses might need to help them feel confident in delivering this care. In April, we presented the findings of the literature scan to the steering committee and discovered that these closely reflected their professional experience. This discussion also expanded on these ideas and helped to plan an online meeting with the broader group of nurses to further refine our understanding of what was needed and what would be useful.

Outcomes from this meeting:

• highlighted the need for support for nurses to engage in the difficult conversations that are part of palliative care
• recognised the important role that nurses play in care coordination and the need to support them in building this skill
• called for the content to be actionable and easily accessible
• emphasised the need for the hub to support nurses with little or no experience in palliative care as well as more experienced nurses
• recommended that symptom assessment and management be included but also psychosocial and spiritual care and information on supporting families.

Next, we conducted a rapid review of current evidence to produce content for new sections and pages and to update existing pages. Involvement of the steering committee and additional external experts in content review was critical at this stage and ensured relevance and practicality before content was loaded into the website and the larger group of nurses invited to comment.

After this major collaborative effort, I now invite you to visit the CareSearch Nurses Hub for more on:

• Palliative Care Nursing: understand what, where and who of palliative care nursing practice
• Communication: an essential part of palliative care, explore ways to gather and share information respectfully and compassionately
• Assessment: find out how to recognise needs and monitor for changes
• Planning and Coordinating Care: learn how to involve individuals and teams in planning and care coordination for current and future needs
• Clinical Care: find practical information on responding to physical and psychosocial needs including:
  • information on how to recognise, assess, and manage ten commonly experienced symptoms and issues
  • My CPD reflections forms developed to help nurses record their learning activity across the ten symptoms
• The Dying Patient: understand how to recognise and manage imminent death and address after-death care
• Loss, Grief, and Bereavement: learn how to support those going through grief and bereavement
• Tools for nurses in palliative care: a range of forms, checklists, and tools to assist you in providing palliative care

As with other CareSearch and palliAGED projects that I have worked on, I was impressed by the passion that these nurses have for their work and their drive to ensure that quality palliative care is available for those who need it. I thank the nurses who worked enthusiastically with us on this project creating a resource with nurses for nurses.

Susan Gravier
Research Officer
CareSearch and palliAGED
Flinders University