NASEM: Building the Workforce We Need to Care for People with Serious Illness: A Workshop
On November 7, 2019, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Roundtable on Quality Care for People with Serious Illness hosted a public workshop, Building the Workforce We Need to Care for People with Serious Illness.
The workshop examined the workforce needed to care for people with serious illness, including physicians, nurses, social workers, chaplains, community-based workers, and home health care workers. Workshop speakers explored challenges and opportunities related to educating, training, and retaining the serious illness care workforce. The workshop also focused on preparing and deploying interprofessional teams to care for people of all ages and all stages of serious illness.
The workshop opened with an overview of the current and projected state of the workforce for care of people with serious illness. The workshop continued over four sessions:
The first session focused on the development of specialists, including mid-career, graduate, and fellowship certificate and certification programs.
Preparing all health care professionals to care for people with serious illness was examined in the second session.
The third session examined challenges and opportunities facing the community-based and home health care workforce.
The last session focused on ways to maximize the contributions of interprofessional team members, showcasing examples of workforce models in the care of people with serious illness. The speakers discussed the reproducibility and scalability of innovative care models, specific considerations in the care of special populations and long-term care settings, and overcoming compassion fatigue and promoting resilience and retention.
Watch videos of the live workshop here
Download the workshop proceedings here