Social Work Serious Illness Designation: Foundational Skills

An introduction to palliative care, how it is delivered, its impact on quality of life, and the growing population of patients who need it.

Brief (4-question) screening tool for anxiety and depression.

Assessment questions to help nurses understand the impact of serious illness on a patient's relationships, social and spiritual supports, financial stability, and trust in the health care system. Fast Facts, April 2020

Assessment tool and resource list to address social risk factors.

Self-reported caregiver assessment.

Checklist of triggers for referral to a specialty palliative care team.

Learn best practices for building trust, eliciting patient values, and having patient-centered conversations about goals of care.

Defines unconscious bias and how it influences patient care, and provides ways to reduce the impact of unconscious bias on care delivery.

This resource lists step-wise tips to foster comfortable, productive dialogue for ‘the hospice conversation’.

Learn to define and characterize pain, recognize the prevalence of pain, understand disparities in pain management based on race, ethnicity, and gender.

Learn the components of a comprehensive pain assessment and its importance in safe and effective pain management.

Gain an overview of pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic pain treatments, including risks and benefits, and learn how to match the analgesic to pain type.

Learn how to identify and diagnose opioid use disorder (OUD) and practice communicating with patients about OUD and pain management.

Recommended validated cognitive assessment tools.

This course provides context and best practices for identifying older adults at risk for poor outcomes, including falls, delirium, and caregiving challenges.

This course offers tools and guidance for assessing and addressing the needs of caregivers of people with serious illness.

Guidance for all clinicians on improving communication and ensuring smooth transitions of care for patients living with serious illness.

Considerations for clinicians, patients, and families upon diagnosis, including advance care planning, personal care needs, legal and financial planning, work and retirement planning, and prevention of common medical risks.

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.