ELNEC Updates: March 2024

The End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium (ELNEC), a collaborative effort between AACN and the City of Hope to improve palliative care, would like to share the following updates for faculty at schools of nursing. We continue to expand our resources to support faculty at schools of nursing to advance palliative care education.  Here is a summary of those resources:

Upcoming Offerings for Faculty

Free Undergraduate Faculty Workshop: Implementing the AACN Essentials Domain of Palliative Care in Undergraduate Education

We are excited to offer this inaugural workshop designed to advance your leadership in integrating palliative and end-of-life education into your school’s undergraduate nursing program. You will work with faculty from across the country to develop teaching and evaluation strategies designed to meet the needs of your program.

Many schools of nursing are evaluating and aligning their nursing curricula with the AACN Essentials to address all spheres of care, including, hospice/palliative/supportive care. This is an exciting opportunity to advance as a faculty leader, and help your school meet the AACN Essentials.  

Workshop Dates & Location
July 18-19, 2024
Portland, OR

Who Should Apply?

• Full-time faculty employed two years (preferred) in a school/college of nursing. Up to two faculty from the same institution will be accepted.
• Teaching within an undergraduate program
• Funding will support 100 participants
• Applications are due April 1, 2024

Selected Participants Receive:

• Free Registration
• Continuing Education Units
• University of Portland Campus Housing for 2 Nights (on-site apartments)
• Course Materials
• Breakfast & Lunch for Both Days

Meals, housing, registration, and materials are covered for participants through the generous sponsorship of ELNEC, City of Hope, the University of Portland School of Nursing and Health Innovations, and Cambia Health Foundation.

Find out more and Apply Here!

Webinars

ELNEC Co-investigators, Dr. Andra Davis and Dr. Megan Lippe, presented a webinar for AACN in February: Reimaging and Expanding When, Where and How to Teach Palliative and End-of-Life Care. Visit the AACN Essentials on-demand webinars page to watch the recorded session if you missed it.

Our monthly webinar series on the ELNEC Undergraduate/New Graduate and ELNEC Graduate online curricula concluded in February. You can watch any of the webinars you missed on the ELNEC Faculty Corner Recorded Sessions for Faculty page.

After a short hiatus, we will be resuming our webinar series in the coming months. If you have any requests for topics, please send them to elnec@coh.org.

Evaluating Nursing Students

We have recently updated our Evaluation Resources page on the ELNEC Faculty Corner. We have included instruments that evaluate palliative care knowledge, perceived competence, and competence.

Regional Chairs

ELNEC has developed many resources for nursing school faculty including webinars and the Faculty Corner on our website. Drs. Andra Davis and Megan Lippe are leading this initiative to support faculty at schools of nursing to advance palliative care education. They are collaborating with other faculty leaders (regional chairs) to address the unique needs of faculty within geographical regions. One key area of support is utilizing the ELNEC Undergraduate/New Graduate and ELNEC Graduate curricula within nursing programs. Regional chairs will be able to support schools of nursing in considering how to teach students about the unique palliative care needs of their local, diverse communities. We are very excited by the momentum growing around this important work.

ELNEC Undergraduate/New Graduate and ELNEC Graduate Curricula

Both ELNEC Undergraduate/New Graduate and ELNEC Graduate curricula have reached more institutions than ever before. As of February 2024, 1,183 institutions have accessed the ELNEC Undergraduate/New Graduate curriculum. These schools enroll students in various undergraduate programs, including traditional pre-licensure baccalaureate, BSN-accelerated, RN-BSN, and ADN students.

ELNEC Graduate has reached students enrolled in MS, MN, and DNP programs being accessed by 394 graduate nursing programs thus far. In addition to academia, practice-based settings across the country such as new hire and residency programs have found value in providing this foundational education to newly hired and newly graduated nurses.

If you are not familiar with the curricula, there are six online modules to prepare students with critical content, such as communicating with patients and families experiencing serious illness, pain, and symptom management, and caring for those nearing the end of life. These materials are foundational to meeting AACN Essentials competencies at both Level 1 and Level 2 in the sphere of hospice/palliative/supportive care. If you are interested in learning more about integrating the ELNEC Undergraduate/New Graduate or ELNEC Graduate curriculum into your program, please encourage faculty to request a link to the curriculum at ELNEC@coh.org to view the online curriculum for FREE! There are also supplemental faculty resources, and they will be sent with each request. For more information on both curricula, visit the website here. If you are in the 4-state region of Idaho, Oregon, Utah, and Washington, please contact Dr. Andra Davis, Associate Professor and ELNEC Co-Investigator at University of Portland, at davisa@up.edu for information on the regional collaboration.

Additional Information

If your school is not yet using these modules, we are able to provide free access to the curricula for schools of nursing faculty to review. Contact elnec@coh.org to request access.

If you are not familiar, the ELNEC Undergraduate/New Graduate and ELNEC Graduate online programs provide state-of-the-art primary palliative care education. Six one-hour modules prepare students with the foundational education needed to care for seriously ill patients and families.  These modules align with the 2021 AACN Essentials in the area of primary palliative competencies for undergraduate and graduate nursing students.

Contact ELNEC Co-Investigators:

Dr. Andra Davis
Associate Professor, University of Portland 
davisa@up.edu

Dr. Megan Lippe
Associate Professor, UT Health San Antonio School of Nursing
lippe@uthscsa.edu