Pallium Canada's curriculum development model: A framework to support large-scale courseware development and deployment

Abstract

The need to improve access to palliative care across multiple settings and disease groups has been identified. This requires equipping health care professionals from many different professions, including physicians and nurses, among others, with basic palliative care competencies to provide a palliative care approach. Pallium Canada’s Curriculum Development Framework supports the development, deployment, and dissemination, on a large scale, of multiple courses targeting health care professionals across multiple settings of care and disease groups. The Framework is made up of eight phases: (1) Concept, (2) Decision, (3) Curriculum Planning, (4) Prototype Development, (5) Piloting, (6) Dissemination, (7) Language and Cultural Adaptation, and (8) Ongoing Maintenance and Updates. Several of these phases include iterative cyclical activities. The framework allows multiple courses to be developed simultaneously, staggered in a production line with each phase and their corresponding activities requiring different levels of resources and stakeholder engagement. The framework has allowed Pallium Canada to develop, launch, and maintain numerous versions of its Learning Essential Approaches to Palliative Care (LEAP) courses concurrently. It leverages existing LEAP courses and curriculum materials to produce new LEAP courses, allowing significant efficiencies and maximizing output. This article describes the framework and its various activities, which we believe could be very useful for other jurisdictions undertaking the work of developing education programs to spread the palliative care approach across multiple settings, specialties, and disease groups.