Jennifer Walter
Discipline: Physician
Funding awarded to: Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Improving Goals of Care Conversations in the Pediatric Cardiac Intensive Care Unit
Most parents with children with complex medical conditions want to work closely with their children’s doctors in making medical decisions. The large teams caring for these patients do not always communicate optimally with each other about care plans making parents frustrated and confused in their decision-making. This project will develop a Communication Skills Training program for inter-professional teams based on VitalTalk and adapted to the pediatric CICU. It will test the impact of the program on communication and team function in simulated family meetings and test the impact of the program on skills and team function in actual family meetings.
I have the privilege of interacting with many divisions and departments in my roles as a palliative care attending and ethics consultant, giving me insight into the unique challenges and strengths of many clinical teams and subfields. I witness teams both struggling and succeeding to collaborate effectively to meet patient and family needs. My vision for the field of palliative care is to support team functioning to better facilitate care planning for seriously ill patients while improving provider satisfaction by reducing team conflict. Families should no longer worry that their clinicians haven’t communicated clearly and openly with one another before a team member speaks to them about devastating news.