Interdisciplinary palliative care communication for quality palliative care: Outcomes of a statewide train-the-trainer course.

83Background: Expert communication skills are essential for the delivery of effective palliative care across the domains of care. However, few healthcare providers receive formal communication training. The purpose of this presentation is to describe a train-the-trainer course for interprofessional hospital-based palliative care teams to prepare them to teach other healthcare professionals palliative care communication skills. Methods: This project was organized by the eight domains of the National Consensus Project (NCP) guidelines for quality palliative care and provided communication skills training for California-based teams. Funded by the Archstone Foundation, this 2-day train-the-trainer course included skill-building exercises and interactive discussions to assist participants in integrating communication skills-building into their clinical settings. Using a goal-directed method of teaching, the faculty assisted teams in developing three institutional goals for providing palliative care communicati...