The College has developed a new tool to help nurses apply the Guiding Decisions About End-of-Life Care practice document to their work.
The review tool was developed as a result of feedback from the Outreach Advisory Group in the palliative care sector, and nurses’ questions about their responsibilities and accountabilities for clients’ end-of-life care decisions, such as:
- Who can make end-of-life care decisions?
- What do I do if a doctor orders a “Do Not Resuscitate,” for a client, but the client wants resuscitation?
- How do I determine the client's current treatment wish if their decisions keep changing?
“The review tool will help nurses answer these questions and more, while testing their knowledge of end-of-life care decisions,” says Katherine Smith, RN, Outreach Consultant for the palliative care sector. “It will also help nurses reflect on important end-of-life care topics so they can support clients with the difficult decisions they need to make.”
You can download the review tool by visiting www.cno.org/eol-review. The tool is divided into two sections; the first contains a series of questions, and the second provides the answers and rationale for each question.
Nurses can use the tool to learn on their own or in groups. It can also be used as a support tool by nursing teams when reviewing practice and policy issues in their practice setting.