Ontario Palliative Care Network seeks OSOT Input to Development of Palliative Care provider Competencies

The Ontario Palliative Care Network (OPCN) is a partnership of community stakeholders, health service providers and health systems planners who are developing a coordinated and standardized approach for delivering hospice palliative care services in the province. The OPCN Action Plan 1: 2017 – 2020 outlines how stakeholders will work together to ensure that quality hospice palliative care services are readily available and easy to access for people with life-limiting illnesses and their loved ones.

Building Provider Competencies

One of the key actions in this plan is to build provider competencies in hospice palliative care to help improve access and strengthen providers’ ability to identify and meet the needs of individuals who would benefit from hospice palliative care. There are recognized gaps in standardized palliative care education and training in Ontario, and a need for competency requirements for all levels of care provision across care settings.To begin to address these needs, the OPCN established a Provincial Education Steering Committee, that includes representation from various professions.

The Provincial Education Steering Committee is in the process of developing a recommendation document that outlines palliative care competencies for health care providers delivering palliative care. Competencies refer to the “range of knowledge, personal attributes, and behaviours needed to effectively perform a role within an organization”. Academic curricula and professional development programs that include palliative care competencies can prepare health and social care professionals to apply the principles of palliative care in practice, irrespective of settings.  Inclusion of these competencies will enhance the care of people with a life-limiting condition and foster greater inter-professional and inter-organizational collaboration in palliative care provision.

Recognizing the comprehensive process the Nova Scotia Health Authority (NSHA) implemented to develop their recent Palliative Care Competency Framework (2017), the Steering Committee elected to leverage their document and validation process to adapt their work to the Ontario context. OSOT is invited to assist with this adaptation to develop an Ontario Palliative Care Competency Framework.  The NSHA used the Irish Palliative Care Competence Framework as a starting point, incorporating additional competencies from national and provincial colleges, and revising the language and terminology to reflect the Canadian health care system. Finally, validation and endorsement for the framework was obtained from front line staff and provider Colleges/Associations. To learn more about the NSHA competency framework and their development process, please refer to the “Primer” document. This document provides important background information about their development process, along with key information about how their document is structured and formatted. 
                                                      

How can Occupational Therapists Get Involved?

OPCN has invited OSOT to review the Occupational Therapist section of the competency document, to validate the included competencies, and to identify any competencies that should be removed.  It is important to note that the aim is to have consistent wording across provider competencies, so unless the wording is inaccurate, we would like to avoid line editing where possible.

The feedback received will inform the final draft competency framework document, which will be sent back to each College/Association for endorsement.  The Society's endorsement is very important to OPCN and will demonstrates OSOT's support for Occupational Therapists to enhance their knowledge and skill to meet the palliative care competencies.

Can you help? Do you work in palliative care?   View the  DRAFT Competencies for Occupational Therapists in Palliative Care. Please refer to the “OCPN Competency Development Primer” for more information about the structure and formatting of the document. 

Please forward your input, comments, suggestions to Christie Brenchley by not later than April 17, 2018.