Teamwork is a complex but essential component of palliative care. The needs of people diagnosed with life threatening disease will vary greatly over time, and it is rarely possible for just one professional to be able to provide adequate care. In order to ensure an holistic approach, the whole multi-disciplinary team must be involved. Inevitable questions arise from such an approach, and this book seeks to address these. How does a team come into being? What different formats are there? How might the patient contribute to the effectiveness of their care and the way in which the team operates? What are the difficulties and frustrations encountered in developing and maintaining such teams? What models of working and styles of leadership have developed? How are power and authority handled within the team setting? The importance of team building, training, support, attention to group process, and stress management to protect the mental health of the team are explored. The ethical issues inherent in palliative care such as consent, autonomy, confidentiality, decision making within teams, and the legal implications of such are also discussed. The book concludes with one important question - do we know if teams are the most effective way of providing care? This book addresses key issues surrounding the role of the team in palliative care, and is an essential guide to reappraising the importance of collaborative teamwork, and enhancing understanding of existing team structures.

Teamwork is a complex but essential component of palliative care. The needs of people suffering from a life-threatening illness are diverse, and it is rare for one professional alone to provide adequate care; the skills of others are needed to ensure a holistic approach. This book explores the different aspects of team working in palliative care.

'The Textbook of Palliative Care Communication' is the authoritative text on communication in palliative care. Uniquely developed by an interdisciplinary editorial team to address an array of providers including physicians, nurses, social workers, and chaplains, it unites clinicians and academic researchers interested in the study of communication.

The new global cancer data suggests that the global burden has risen to 18.1 million new cases per year and 9.6 million cancer deaths per year. A number of factors appear to be driving this increase, in particular, a growing and aging global population and an increase of exposure to cancer risk factors linked to social and economic development. For rapidly-growing economies, the data suggests a shift from poverty- or infection-related cancers to those associated with lifestyles more typical in industrialized countries. There is still large geographical diversity in cancer occurrence and variations in the magnitude and profile of the disease between and within world regions. There are specific types of cancer that dominate globally: lung, female breast and colorectal cancer, and the regional variations in common cancer types signal the extent to which societal, economic and lifestyle changes interplay to deferentially impact on the profile of this most complex group of diseases. Unfortunately, despite advances in cancer care, a significant proportion of patients at home, experience sub-optimal outcomes. Barriers to successful treatment outcomes include, but are not limited to: access to oncologists in the primary health centers, non-adherence, lack of experienced oncology and palliative care nurses in the community, inadequate monitoring and the lack of training of family and pediatric physicians. Telemedicine approaches, including telephone triage/education, telemonitoring, teleconsultation and status tracking through mobile applications, have shown promise in further improving outcomes, in particular for chronic cancer patients following their hospitalization. Lessons can be learned from existing hospices in North America, the United Kingdom, Australia, Centers of Excellence in African (Uganda) and modern community services in India (Kerala). An important goal of this book is to describe and encourage professionals to develop new community programs in palliative care, which include training and empowering physicians and nurses in the community on the principles of palliative care. The Middle East Cancer Consortium (MECC) together with the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and the American Oncology Nursing Society (ONS) have conducted multiple courses ranging from basic palliative care to more specialized training in palliative care for multiple nationalities in Europe, Asia and Africa. Our experience clearly indicates that, to promote such activities, one needs strong leadership and confirmed political will to support the endeavor. The new book will emphasize the importance of having a core of multiple stakeholders including community leaders, government, NGOs and media to be actively involved in advocating for the cause and generating public awareness. This text will provide the reader with a comprehensive understanding of the outside-of-the-hospital treatment of cancer patients by medical, paramedical and volunteer personnel. In doing so, this text will encourage the creation of new palliative care services improving upon the existing ones and stimulate further research in this field. Part 1 of the text will begin with an overview of the current state of affairs of services provided to cancer patients while being cared for by primary health centers. It will also review the current literature regarding medical and psychological-based therapy options in the community for cancer patients at different stages of their disease. Part 2 will address the unique role of the community nurse, within the framework of the multidisciplinary team treating the patient, in the attempt to provide optimal evaluation and care in very challenging situations (such as with terminal patients). Part 3 will provide insightful models of this new discipline and serve as a valuable resource for physicians, nurses, social workers and others involved in the care of cancer patients. The book will take a multidisciplinary approach, integrating clinical and environmental data for practical management to enhance the efficacy of treatment while relieving suffering. Part 4 will also discuss the application of modern technological approaches to track symptoms, quality of life, diet, mobility, duration of sleep and medication use (including pain killers) in chronic cancer patients in the community. Part 5 of the book will also be devoted to modes of developing a collaborative program between governmental and non-governmental organization sectors. This includes volunteer workers in close collaboration with medical professionals for providing emotional and spiritual support, nursing care, nutritional support and empowering family caregivers. Such a model makes palliative care in the community a “people’s movement”, thus transferring part of the responsibility and ownership to the community.

Today in the United States, the professional health workforce is not consistently prepared to provide high quality health care and assure patient safety, even as the nation spends more per capita on health care than any other country. The absence of a comprehensive and well-integrated system of continuing education (CE) in the health professions is an important contributing factor to knowledge and performance deficiencies at the individual and system levels. To be most effective, health professionals at every stage of their careers must continue learning about advances in research and treatment in their fields (and related fields) in order to obtain and maintain up-to-date knowledge and skills in caring for their patients. Many health professionals regularly undertake a variety of efforts to stay up to date, but on a larger scale, the nation's approach to CE for health professionals fails to support the professions in their efforts to achieve and maintain proficiency. Redesigning Continuing Education in the Health Professions illustrates a vision for a better system through a comprehensive approach of continuing professional development, and posits a framework upon which to develop a new, more effective system. The book also offers principles to guide the creation of a national continuing education institute.

This is an introduction to the principles and practices of caring for those with cancer. Topics include: history of the hospice movement, psychosocial care, symptom control, spiritual care, multidisciplinary teamwork, assessing the quality of life in palliative care, and ethics and legal issues. Healthcare professionals will find this book useful for the daily management of both cancer patients and their families.

Written by a Macmillan lecturer, this comprehansive handbook demonstrates the application of theory to good practice, offering practical guidance to anyone involved with the care of dying people and their families.

PROMOTING PARTNERSHIP FOR HEALTH This book forms part of a series entitled Promoting Partnership for Health publishedin association with the UK Centre for the Advancement of Interprofessional Education (CAIPE). The series explores partnership for health from policy, practice and educational perspectives. Whilst strongly advocating the imperative driving collaboration in healthcare, it adopts a pragmatic approach. Far from accepting established ideas and approaches, the series alerts readers to the pitfalls and ways to avoid them. DESCRIPTION Interprofessional Teamwork for Health and Social Care is an invaluable guide for clinicians, academics, managers and policymakers who need to understand, implement and evaluate interprofessional teamwork. It will give them a fuller understanding of how teams function, of the issues relating to the evaluation of teamwork, and of approaches to creating and implementing interventions (e.g. team training, quality improvement initiatives) within health and social care settings. It will also raise awareness of the wide range of theories that can inform interprofessional teamwork. The book is divided into nine chapters. The first 'sets the scene' by outlining some common issues which underpin interprofessional teamwork, while the second discusses current teamwork developments around the globe. Chapter 3 explores a range of team concepts, and Chapter 4 offers a new framework for understanding interprofessional teamwork. The next three chapters discuss how a range of range of social science theories, interventions and evaluation approaches can be employed to advance this field. Chapter 8 presents a synthesis of research into teams the authors have undertaken in Canada, South Africa and the UK, while the final chapter draws together key threads and offers ideas for future of teamwork. The book also provides a range of resources for designing, implementing and evaluating interprofessional teamwork activities.

The Oxford Textbook of Palliative Social Work is a comprehensive, evidence-informed text that addresses the needs of professionals who provide interdisciplinary, culturally sensitive, biopsychosocial-spiritual care for patients and families living with life-threatening illness. Social workers from diverse settings will benefit from its international scope and wealth of patient and family narratives. Unique to this scholarly text is its emphasis on the collaborative nature inherent in palliative care. This definitive resource is edited by two leading palliative social work pioneers who bring together an array of international authors who provide clinicians, researchers, policy-makers, and academics with a broad range of content to enrich the guidelines recommended by the National Consensus Project for Quality Palliative Care.

Essentials of Palliative Care is a to-the-point, clinically oriented resource for all members of the multidisciplinary palliative care team and trainees. It covers practical clinical topics, including assessment of the patient and pain and symptom management, and practical non-medical topics central to providing effective palliative care, including psychological management, guidance on how to help patients and their families through the many healthcare decision points they face, and sensitivity to the goals and culture of the patient. Review questions, with detailed answers, provide a convenient way for readers to test their knowledge. Features: · Concise, comprehensive, clinically focused · Multiple choice review questions, with detailed answers · Expert contributors from leading institutions · Coordination of care by palliative care team a major focus