End-of-Life & Palliative Care [LTC-06-EN]

End-of-Life & Palliative Care in Long-Term Settings [LTC-06-EN]

In long-term care facilities across Georgia and the wider South Caucasus region, end-of-life conversations are frequently deferred until a resident enters active crisis — a pattern that compromises clinical decision-making, increases family distress, and undermines the dignity of dying that every resident deserves. The WHO Global Atlas of Palliative Care estimates that fewer than 14% of people who need palliative care globally receive it, with long-term care populations among the most systematically underserved. For professionals working in accredited social care facilities (ASFs), the absence of structured advance care planning is not only a clinical failure but a compliance risk: Georgian ASF accreditation standards explicitly require documented care planning processes, family engagement protocols, and evidence of staff competency in end-of-life communication. This course addresses that gap directly, equipping care teams with the proactive frameworks, written instruments, and communication skills necessary to meet both the clinical and regulatory demands of quality end-of-life care.

The course is grounded in WHO palliative care principles, the Joint Commission International (JCI) standards for patient-centred care and care planning, and the evidence base established by landmark frameworks including the Gold Standards Framework and the Serious Illness Conversation Programme, whose structured communication protocols have demonstrated measurable reductions in unwanted hospitalisation and improvements in goal-concordant care. Instruction employs scenario-based learning drawn from realistic long-term care contexts, including case studies reflecting the family-centred decision-making norms prevalent in Georgian and South Caucasus clinical culture. Formative assessment activities are integrated throughout to support transfer of learning to daily practice.

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Distinguish between palliative care, end-of-life care, and terminal care, applying the correct clinical and documentation terminology within ASF-regulated environments.
• Construct an advance care plan that incorporates resident preferences, surrogate decision-maker designation, and documented family consultation, in alignment with Georgian social care legislation and ASF accreditation criteria.
• Implement a structured, proactive approach to goals-of-care conversations using validated communication frameworks, adapted for family-inclusive models common in the South Caucasus context.
• Evaluate a resident’s symptom burden at end of life using recognised assessment tools — including pain, dyspnoea, and agitation scales — and determine when pharmacological escalation or specialist palliative referral is clinically indicated.
• Apply non-pharmacological comfort strategies — including positioning, oral care, sensory environment modification, and psychosocial support — as first-line responses to distress in the final days of life.
• Analyze the documentation and process requirements that ASF inspectors review at accreditation, identifying gaps in a facility’s current end-of-life care pathway and proposing evidence-based corrective actions.

Who Should Attend

This course is designed for nurses, social workers, care coordinators, and facility directors working in licensed long-term care and residential social care settings in Georgia, including both state-run and privately operated ASFs. It is equally relevant to general practitioners providing visiting medical oversight in these facilities and to quality assurance leads preparing for accreditation review. Professionals at all career stages will benefit, though the course is particularly valuable for those who currently lack formal postgraduate training in palliative or end-of-life care.

Course Structure

This fully online, self-paced course comprises five structured modules with an estimated study time of 5–6 hours, incorporating video-based instruction, interactive case scenarios, and reflective documentation exercises; participants complete a graded summative assessment to demonstrate competency and receive a GMJ Academy certificate of completion eligible for CPD credit recognition.