HopeHealth and The University of Rhode Island’s (URI) College of Nursing recently formed a new academic practice partnership to expand employment opportunities in hospice and palliative care.
Through the partnership, HopeHealth will provide nursing students with advanced practice experience and clinical rotations. Collaborative research opportunities are also available to the university’s faculty, as well as students pursuing doctor of nursing practice and doctorate degrees. The Rhode Island-based nonprofit also provides guest lectures at the university.
The formalized academic practice partnership is aimed at improving clinical education, as well as training and professional development in the fields of hospice and palliative care, said HopeHealth President and CEO Diana Franchitto. Interest in these areas has been climbing, but a lack of exposure and high educational costs often stymie career growth, she indicated.
“It’s about pathways and how we can work collaboratively,” Franchitto told Hospice News. “When you formalize that and put pen to paper, it [comes] with a sense of accountability. Nursing training … has really changed over the past 20 years, I’m seeing a huge shift. Even at very young ages, we’re seeing nurses want to work in end-of-life care. It’s offering the experience of caring for seriously ill patients.”
The nation’s current nursing workforce lacks opportunities to advance and complete their training in hospice and palliative care, Franchitto stated. High educational costs can serve as a significant barrier, as can lagging exposure to hospice and palliative care in medical training programs, she said.
HopeHealth provides home care, hospice, palliative and dementia care, as well as family caregiver and grief support services. Founded roughly 50 years ago, the nonprofit health system serves Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts. The organization also offers inpatient and community-based pediatric palliative care.
HopeHealth is the major teaching affiliate for hospice and palliative medicine of The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. In addition, the health system has developed partnerships with several other health care organizations in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
The hospice provider has seen growing interest among its nursing workforce in the new academic program, Franchitto said.
“We absolutely take our role seriously in doing whatever we can to ensure that our nurses can have professional development opportunities, and try to eliminate as many barriers as possible to achieving their aspirations,” she said.
The nonprofit’s new partnership with URI’s College of Nursing was developed through a long-standing informal relationship.
The university is partnering with HopeHealth to enhance the organization’s existing academic degree and certificate pathways through continuing education programs and simulation-based learning experiences.
These types of collaborative academic practice partnerships have the potential to improve clinical resources during a time of rising demand, said Danny Willis, dean and professor of The University of Rhode Island’s College of Nursing.
Today’s educators and health care providers share a common goal to improve quality and access, Willis indicated.
“There’s this notion of academic practice partnerships being a real nexus of the future when academia and practice come together,” Willis told Hospice News. “We all have resource constraints. It’s really about collaborative, interdisciplinary teams driving the science of compassion and care, and one mechanism is through academic pathways. It’s to prepare outstanding, compassionate clinicians, scholars and leaders who enhance the well-being of individuals.”
Sustainability of the partnership will in part hinge upon building a flexible educational and professional development framework, Willis said. The partnership model must be adaptable to meet evolving clinical education and training needs while also accounting for operational, financial and staffing considerations, he explained.
The novel partnership is in its early stages of development and implementation. Systematic monitoring will involve engagement with nursing educators, students and hospice staff, Willis indicated. A goal is to be able to provide tuition reimbursement and training fees.
“We’ve been very intentional about how we do not have to be perfect to get this off the ground and then build, elevate and evolve over time,” Willis said. “It’s really bringing people who are grounded in palliative and hospice care.”
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