Palliative Care in Acute & Critical Care Settings

The goal of palliative care is to address the impact of serious illness by managing symptoms, improving quality of life, providing emotional support and ensuring that the plan of care aligns with patient and family goals. Under usual circumstances, there is significant overlap between nursing basics — interaction between patient and disease — and palliative care.

AACN offers resources to support nurses as they care for patients with serious illnesses and those nearing the end of their lives, as well as education for staff members who don’t usually provide this kind of care. In addition, several respected organizations offer widely recognized resources on these topics, including the End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium/ELNEC (palliative care training), Center to Advance Palliative Care (toolkits) and Vital Talk program (communication skills).