CARES: Competencies And Recommendations for Educating Undergraduate Nursing Students Preparing Nurses to Care for the Seriously Ill and Their Families
Nurses play a key role in caring for seriously ill patients, as they assess and manage complicated diseases, monitor multiple technologies, and orchestrate respectful culturally competent care with the interprofessional team. In today's complex health care delivery system, the needs of patients with serious illness and their families demand that nurses and their interprofessional team members be educated in palliative care. 1 Although there is evidence supporting the value of palliative care, 2 the number of health care professionals available to provide palliative care is inadequate to meet the needs of patients and families across the lifespan, the illness trajectory and health care settings. 3 Therefore, it is imperative that future nurses be prepared with the knowledge and skills to provide palliative care to the seriously ill. This document is a timely and essential statement grounded in the mandates for educating nurses in quality, safety and interprofessional team based care. 4 Most importantly the document emphasizes the essential role of the nurse in providing compassionate, evidence based palliative care at the highest level of the registered nurses' scope of practice. 1, 4 6