A Primary Palliative Care Education Program to Improve Access for Patients with Cancer: EPEC (Education in Palliative and End-of-life Care) adaptation and teaching

Northwestern faculty members affiliated with the Buehler Center will adapt and teach the Education in Palliative and End of Life Care (EPEC) Curriculum for this project. EPEC is a train-the-trainer curriculum that teaches core skills in palliative care, including symptom management, communication skills and ethics, and incorporates 16 content modules, traditionally delivered as a two day conference. It has been adapted for oncology (EPEC-O), Emergency Medicine (EPEC-EM) and the Department of Veterans Affairs (EPEC for Veterans). An initial needs assessment among participating hospitals will generate a set of priorities that will inform out modification of the curriculum. Hospitals will have an opportunity to review a full version of the standard curricular topics, including the objectives for each module. If a hospital feels the need for more intensive communication training, for example, we will emphasize and expand the relevant modules. If a hospital feels the need for more material in symptom management, we will focus our adaptation on those modules. The end result will be an adaptation of the core content that meets the priority needs of the hospitals in this program. Following the editing/modification process, two EPEC master facilitators – Drs. Hauser and Preodor – will deliver the new version of the curriculum during a two-day conference.