Critical Care Nurses: Strengthening Communication and Symptom Management
Training in communication, pain and symptom management, and caregiver support enables critical care nurses to align care with patient and family priorities for care and relieve physical and psychological suffering. Use this toolkit for skills training and clinical tools to support the care of patients with serious illness, and their families.
What’s in the Toolkit
Top Resource Recommendations for Critical Care Nurses
Communicating about what matters most to patients and families (including goals of care, advance care planning, and understanding prognosis), assessing for pain, and partnering with palliative care when needed.
An introduction to palliative care, how it is delivered, its impact on quality of life, and the growing population of patients who need it.
Conducting a comprehensive pain assessment to guide safe and effective treatment.
Learn techniques to help patients and their caregivers plan for the future, both during the early stages of a serious illness and as a disease progresses.
Learn best practices for building trust, eliciting patient values, and having patient-centered conversations about goals of care.
Learn to effectively lead meetings that help patients and caregivers become aligned around the patient’s goals.
Learn best practices for having patient-centered conversations about a serious illness diagnosis.
Learn how to effectively discuss prognosis with patients and their caregivers.
Ten important steps for improving communication between clinicians and patients/families. NOTE: This video does not provide CE credits.
Providing Whole-Patient Care
Supporting patients—and their families—as disease progresses.
Assessing and supporting caregivers of people with serious illness.
Managing Pain and Other Symptoms
Assessing and managing pain, dyspnea, nausea and vomiting, constipation, anxiety, and depression.
Safe opioid prescribing in older adults, cognitively impaired patients, children, and the imminently dying, including patient-controlled analgesia.
Training curriculum and clinical tools for assessing and managing five common symptoms in patients living with serious illness.
ICU-Palliative Care Collaboration
Partnering to support the needs of patients with serious illness—and their families—in the ICU.
Integrating palliative care practices in the ICU through training and collaboration.
