Email: info@epec.net
Education in Palliative and End-of-life Care for Emergency Medicine (EPEC-EM)
EPEC-EM is an extensive adaptation of the original EPEC curriculum, designed to teach the essential clinical competencies in emergency palliative care. This curriculum was written and edited by emergency physicians and nurse educators to address issues specific to emergency medicine practice. Linda Emanuel, MD, PhD is principle investigator, and Tammie Quest, MD is co-investigator and project director. This project is supported by the National Institutes of Health.
Educational topics include quick steps for performing a rapid palliative care assessment in the ED; formulating trajectories and prognoses; managing hospice patients, cancer patients, and chronic pain patients; steps for performing family-witnessed resuscitation; and much more. Emergency clinicians are taught how, when, and why to contact hospice or a primary provider; how to communicate bad news to patients and families; and how to assess patients for psychological, spiritual, and social needs. In addition, techniques for teaching palliative care to other emergency practitioners are covered.
EPEC-EM is a high impact, conference-based education dissemination project that utilizes the train the trainer model developed in the original EPEC Project. Conference participants are taught content about end-of-life and palliative care and are trained in teaching techniques and skills. These participants then return to their home institutions to teach what they learned to their colleagues and students. One goal of the EPEC-EM Project is to train directors of emergency medicine residency programs, so that future EM doctors will have exposure to the core principles of end-of-life and palliative care prior to seeing patients in need of these services. To date, the following emergency medicine residency programs have at least one EPEC-EM Trainer:
- Los Angeles County-Harbor-UCLA Medical Center Program
- Loma Linda University Program
- Stanford University Hospital/Kaiser Permanente Medical Center Program
- Denver Health Medical Center Program
- George Washington University Program
- Florida Hospital Medical Center Program
- Emory University Program
- McGaw Medical Center of Northwestern University Program
- University of Illinois College of Medicine at Chicago Program
- Advocate Christ Medical Center Program
- Indiana University School of Medicine Program
- Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center/Harvard Medical School Program
- Wayne State University/Detroit Medical Center Program
- University of Michigan Program
- St John Hospital and Medical Center Program
- University of Mississippi Medical Center Program
- University of Nebraska Medical Center Program
- UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School Program
- University of New Mexico Program
- University of Rochester Program
- Duke University Hospital Program
- Geisinger Health System Program
- Thomas Jefferson University Program
- Medical University of South Carolina Program
- Vanderbilt University Program
- Madigan Army Medical Center/University of Washington Program
- University of Chicago Program
- Kaiser Permanente Program
- Wright State University Program
- Resurrection Medical Center Program
- Washington University School of Medicine Program
- Yale University Program
- University of Connecticut Program
- University of California – Davis Program
The EPEC-EM Faculty comprises a diverse set of emergency department professionals. Physicians, nurses, lawyers, and chaplains with experience in emergency medicine and palliative care teach the workshop sessions.
EPEC-EM Holds Third Conference in Chicago
Another ‘Become an EPEC-EM Trainer’ Conference was held September 5th & 6th, 2008, at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, IL. To date, the Project has certified more than 100 EPEC-EM Trainers using the EPEC-EM Curriculum. The EPEC-EM Team is now in the process of evaluating the clinical effectiveness of the Curriculum.
EPEC-EM Holds Second Conference in New Orleans
The second ‘Become an EPEC-EM Trainer’ Conference was held February 27th & 28th, 2008, in New Orleans, LA. Through interactive lectures and small group sessions, participants were taught state-of-the-art principles about the practice of emergency palliative care. Upon completion of the conference, participants became certified EPEC-EM Trainers and were given various educational materials and media to use in disseminating the curriculum at their own institutions.
Inaugural ‘Become an EPEC-EM Trainer’ Conference held in Chicago, IL
The EPEC-EM project trained its first set of trainers August 3 & 4, 2007 in Chicago. Over forty physicians, nurses, and social workers attended the two-day conference. This was the first palliative and end-of-life care education conference specifically geared to emergency department providers. Participants came from across the United States and Canada.
