End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium
The End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium (ELNEC) project is a national education initiative to improve palliative care.[1] The project provides an undergraduate and graduate nursing faculty, CE providers, staff development educators, specialty nurses in pediatrics, oncology, critical care, and geriatrics, and other nurses with training in palliative care so they can teach this information to nursing students and practicing nurses. The project, which began in February 2000, was initially funded by a major grant from The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). Additional funding has been received from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and Open Society Foundations, Aetna, Archstone Foundation, Oncology Nursing, California HealthCare Foundation, Milbank, and Cambia Health Foundations and the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA).
Current Status
Up to January 2016, over 20,500 nurses and other healthcare professionals, representing all 50 US states, plus 88 international countries have received ELNEC training through these national courses and are sharing this new expertise in educational and clinical settings. ELNEC trainers are currently hosting professional development seminars for practicing nurses, incorporating ELNEC content into nursing curricula, hosting regional training sessions to expand ELNEC’s reach into rural and under-served communities, presenting ELNEC at national and international conferences, coordinating community partnerships, and improving the quality of nursing care in other ways. It is estimated that since its inception, ELNEC trainers who have returned to their institutions and communities have trained over 615,000 nurses and other healthcare providers.
Courses offered
ELNEC-Core, ELNEC-Pediatric Palliative Care, ELNEC-Critical Care, ELNEC-Geriatric, ELNEC-Advanced Practice Register Nurse (APRN), DNP Palliative Oncology Care
ELNEC also operates courses internationally and the curricula has been translated into other languages. Faculty members have traveled to 6 continents with participants representing 88 countries.
Administration
The ELNEC project is administered by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN), Washington, DC, and the City of Hope National Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA and the faculty includes a national cadre of nursing leaders in palliative care. Betty Ferrell is the Principal Investigator of ELNEC and the Director of Nursing Research & Education and Professor at City of Hope. The ELNEC Project Directors are Rose Virani and Pam Malloy. ELNEC is also supported by a support staff team of project coordinators at City of Hope.
References
- ↑ Ferrell, BR; Dahlin, C; Campbell, ML; Paice, JA; Malloy, P; Virani, R (2007). "End-of-life Nursing Education Consortium (ELNEC) Training Program: improving palliative care in critical care.". Crit Care Nurs Q. 30: 206–12. doi:10.1097/01.CNQ.0000278920.37068.e9. PMID 17579303.