Success Stories from CAPC’s Third Tipping Point Challenge
May 29, 2024
New York, NY (May 23, 2024) – The “Clinical Training” category of CAPC’s third John A. Hartford Foundation Tipping Point Challenge invited CAPC members to achieve as many course completions as possible from November 2022 through October 2023. This national Challenge, sponsored by CAPC and The John A. Hartford Foundation, was the culmination of CAPC’s five-year campaign aimed at creating a tipping point in the improvement of care delivered to millions of Americans living with a serious illness.
Over 1,700 organizations participated in the competition, fifteen organizations won, and another forty-seven made the Honor Roll. In total, over 31,000 clinicians enhanced their training by completing 195,000 courses. This year-long national clinical training Challenge helped health care organizations expand on their ability to care for patients living with serious illness by developing skills in communication, pain management, and symptom management. This way, clinicians from all medical specialities and disciplines are prepared to work with this patient population, and their families.
Read some of the winners’ stories below…
We recognize that advanced care planning and goals of care conversations play a crucial role in the care of our patients. The Tipping Point Challenge allowed providers within our organization to educate themselves on this topic. We wanted them to have access to palliative care training that was easy to access, and provided the most up-to-date clinical information that was relevant to their practice. Many of our providers have earned CAPC designations in areas that are relevant to the population that we serve. Completing the CAPC curriculum is now a standard expectation in our organization; it is built into new hire orientation and adoption is a key performance metric for all providers for annual reviews.
Flora Petillo, Genesis Physician Services, Tipping Point Challenge Winner
We wanted to improve the quality of training around palliative care within our organization, and CAPC and the Tipping Point Challenge really helped us achieve this. With leadership buy-in early-on in the competition, we were able to encourage staff to take CAPC courses as possible, as it is an integral part of obtaining skills for the patients we all care for. We used a strategic approach to disseminate a suite of high-yield CAPC courses across our interdisciplinary teams, by designating trainers across each discipline (especially physician, nursing, and social work). They assigned the courses and ensured they were completed by the interdisciplinary team members. We collected feedback on which courses staff felt were most helpful/high-yield and selected them to be taken by new staff during their onboarding.
Alice Mao, MD, On Lok PACE, Tipping Point Challenge Winner
Moffitt Cancer Center’s departments of supportive care medicine and nursing professional development provide formal training system-wide, in order to enhance goal-concordant care. This helped us achieve success in the Tipping Point Challenge, while maintaining an Age-Friendly Health System. Aligning with this focus, our multidisciplinary team improved and expanded palliative care education, and the training of our clinical team members to positively affect patient outcomes and quality of life. Senior leadership backed this effort by ensuring access to CAPC for staff. Members of the multidisciplinary team motivated others to take courses through programs, committee meeting announcements, flyers, and emails. Lastly, nursing, social work, and chaplaincy care implemented the completion of CAPC modules as part of mandatory orientation.
Our participation in the Tipping Point Challenge aided in bridging gaps in the care of Moffitt’s older adult, young adult, and adolecesent patient populations. It also helped increase awareness of CAPC’s palliative care educational resources system-wide, enhancing multidisciplinary collaboration and recognition of aligning efforts.
Chelsey Labadie, MSN, RN, CHPN, Moffitt Cancer Center, Tipping Point Challenge Winner
The palliative care service here at Lincoln has a fellowship program, and also routinely educates rotating medical students and residents. We have developed a curriculum which utilizes CAPC educational modules to spread the word about palliative care. Our fellows utilize the fantastic resources on a regular basis to grow their education. We highly encourage rotators to utilize courses and resources as well to better learn about palliative care and pain management.
Natasha Suleman, MD, Lincoln Health and Hospitals, New York City Tipping Point Challenge Winner
Our team achieved success by implementing various strategies, including but not limited to driving awareness about the benefits of professional development within our organization, engaging learners to actively participate, establishing a feedback mechanism that motivated and encouraged participants to share their thoughts, and incentivizing and recognizing learners by validating their efforts through quarterly prizes and a grand prize. We also incorporated CAPC training into our nurse residency program, palliative care orientation and continuing education initiatives, and care coordination (social workers, case managers, transition coordinators).
Yusimi Sobrino-Bonilla, APN, The Valley Hospital, Tipping Point Challenge Winner
We have held institutional membership with the Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC) for many years, which hospital leadership was instrumental in attaining. Throughout this time, our palliative care service has effectively advocated for the integration and utilization of this tremendous educational resource, which includes interactive courses on communication, delivering serious news, symptom assessment, and management for seriously ill patients, prognostication, disease trajectory, spiritual, and psychosocial care of patients, among many other resources. Our medical school and many of our residency/fellowship program directors have integrated these courses into their curriculum. We have furthermore been able to get buy-in from other departments and services, including the hospitalist service, care management, spiritual care department, and nursing leadership.
This educational resource has truly played an important role in our mission to educate our trainees, faculty, and staff on palliative care and the provision of quality care for the seriously ill. Additionally, other departments, services, and program directors have incorporated CAPC courses into their orientation or onboarding curriculum, and in situations specifically related to caring for patients with serious illness.
Grace LaTorre DO, MS, FACP, Stony Brook Medicine, Tipping Point Challenge Winner
About the Center to Advance Palliative Care
The Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC) is a national organization dedicated to increasing the availability of quality health care for people living with a serious illness. As the nation’s leading resource in its field, CAPC provides health care professionals and organizations with the training, tools, and technical assistance necessary to effectively meet this need.
CAPC is funded through organizational membership and the generous support of foundations and private philanthropy. It is part of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, in New York City. www.capc.org
About the Tipping Point Challenge
The Tipping Point Challenge is a national competition aimed at creating a tipping point of change in the improvement of care delivered to millions of Americans living with a serious illness. The goal of the first Tipping Point Challenge was to help health care organizations expand the ability to enhance skills among clinicians in all medical specialties and disciplines treating serious illness. Meet the Challenge at https://tippingpointchallenge.capc.org/
