P3B014: The Case for Palliative Arts: Envisioning Enhanced Standards of Practice in Palliative Care

Background: In burgeoning efforts across the country, palliative care clinicians serving a variety of populations are leading innovative efforts that center on the integration of storytelling, narrative writing, and additional forms of artistic intervention. How might this integration lead to true advancements in how palliativists uphold the lived experiences of patients, their families and communities while enhancing wellbeing and innovation in clinical practice? How might these efforts inform the further advancement of palliative care leadership within a health care system in urgent need of profound change? Our interprofessional team (social work, nursing, medicine) is advocating for our standard of practice to expand to include arts based programming and research into the model of palliative care - as much as science and technology.

Project Description: Palliative care leaders from across the country are developing, researching, and advocating for arts-based endeavors that reach across the following domains: Education, Research, Policy/Advocacy, Innovation, Practice and Sustainability/Wellbeing. A group of these individuals have come together to form a coalition to exchange ideas and advocacy, joining forces to build a robust body of evidence for arts-based interventions in palliative care.

This presentation will highlight the formation and ongoing efforts of this coalition alongside the variety of interconnected, interprofessional “Palliative Arts” programming that is already underway across the country, amplifying a call for greater systematic integration and study of the utilization of the arts within the field of palliative care. These endeavors include: incorporation of first-person patient narratives within the electronic medical record in pediatric and adult settings, improvisational theatre techniques to enhance pediatric clinical practice, the use of poetry to support the well-being of practitioners, narrative based communication training, and storytelling in policy advocacy.

Discussion: This presentation will underscore a call to action toward the increasing need for integration of arts-based programming as standard of practice in palliative care. This growing community of national and international collaborators will spotlight advantageous partnerships between interprofessional colleagues serving a variety of populations. Through this shared space of innovation, silos of effort and creation can be bridged and knowledge disseminated, enhancing care for all through the utilization of Palliative Arts.

Conclusion: The time for integration of Palliative Arts is now. The grave inequities of our health care system, the glaring ways in which the practice of medicine is leading to global burnout, and the deepened need for true advocacy and policy change have never been so stark. The integration of arts-based initiatives is illuminating pathways forward toward improvement of care for diverse communities, sustainability in clinical practice, and greater policy change. The Palliative Arts are not simply novel side programing – they contain the way forward for change within our field.