Healthcare providers

PalliPro is an educational series for all Alberta health care professionals and disciplines to strengthen knowledge, skills and attitudes in providing palliative care. PalliPro can be used by individuals for professional development and can be used by groups to explore the interdisciplinary nature of palliative care.

The series takes approximately 2.5 hours to complete. You may stop at any time and use the side menu to resume from where you left off.

In 2018, under the direction of the Alberta Health Services Provincial Palliative and End-of-Life Innovations Steering Committee, we brought palliative care experts together to create an Alberta palliative care competencies structure. It organized palliative care competencies into 10 domains and three levels of expertise.

Alberta Palliative Care Competency Framework — Technical Report

There are 14 discipline-specific competency frameworks designed to help frontline clinical staff and volunteers assess their knowledge, skills, behaviours and attitudes toward palliative care and when caring for a person with a life-limiting illness. These documents can inform and guide academic curricula, professional development, professional regulatory bodies, continuing education programs and employers.

• Dietitians
• Emergency medical responders and paramedics
• Health care aides
• Medical radiation and imaging technologists
• Nurses
• Occupational therapists
• Pharmacists
• Psychologists
• Physiotherapists
• Respiratory therapists
• Social workers
• Speech language pathologists and audiologists 
• Spiritual care
• Volunteers

In March 2021, we received funding for phase 2 of the competency project, which seeks to develop standardized competency-based palliative care education for healthcare practitioners in Alberta. Our first objective was to identify Alberta-based interprofessional palliative care competencies.

The Alberta Interprofessional Palliative Care Competency Framework can inform and guide team-building activities, professional development, continuing education programs, accreditation, regulated professional and employer standards and academic curricula.

Alberta Interprofessional Palliative Care Competency Framework: Technical Report

Alberta Interprofessional Palliative Care Competency Framework

Have questions or feedback? Email us at palliative.institute@covenanthealth.ca.

Interdisciplinary healthcare providers deliver palliative care to people with life-limiting illness throughout the course of their illness and with increasing intensity at end of life. Our priority is to prepare healthcare providers to practice research-informed palliative care.

After completing an environmental scan supported by expert knowledge from across the province, we created an inventory of palliative care continuing education courses for nursing and allied healthcare providers offered in Alberta as of 2021.