Research and Impact

Pallium conducts and participates in research to evaluate the effectiveness and impact of palliative care education including determining the benefits for patients, providers, health care system, and advancing palliative care in Canada. Pallium’s research is also critical to inform the continuous improvement of its palliative care courses and resources. From inquiry to data generation and data analysis, research helps to identify best practices that are evidence informed. Pallium is committed to sharing and applying these best practices and to continual improvement of its own courses and materials.

This page highlights Pallium’s direct contributions to the scientific literature on palliative care and recognizes the incredible contributions of partners and the impact that their work has had to support the palliative care approach and transform the way health care professionals care for patients with life-limiting illnesses, and their families.

On this page, we highlight:

Research

The story of Pallium Canada’s evolution
The work of the Dr. Joshua Shadd – Pallium Canada Research Hub
Research Archive Library

Impact

The impact of funder support
Partnering to achieve impact
Thought leadership in palliative care

Research

Pallium Canada's story

Read the three foundational publications that tell the story of Pallium Canada’s evolution, from the pedagogical theory behind LEAP to the success behind spreading and scaling the palliative care approach.

Primary-level Palliative Care National Capacity: Pallium Canada in BMJ Supportive & Palliative Care covers Pallium’s evolution, the national spread of its education and compassionate communities’ programs, while discussing what factors play in the acceleration and impeding of these resources.
Pallium Canada’s Curriculum Development Model: A Framework to Support Large-Scale Courseware Development and Deployment in the Journal of Palliative Medicine explores the framework that allows Pallium to develop, launch, and maintain numerous versions of LEAP courses concurrently.
Navigating Design Options for Large-Scale Interprofessional Continuing Palliative Care Education: Pallium Canada’s Experience in Palliative Medicine Reports describes the learning design decisions that underpin Pallium’s interprofessional LEAP courses.

The Dr. Joshua Shadd — Pallium Canada Research Hub at McMaster University

Pallium and McMaster University’s Department of Family Medicine launched Canada’s first palliative care educational research hub in 2019. The Research Hub undertakes work to advance palliative care educational research and measure the impact of continuing professional development on the health care system.

An evaluation and research framework to guide Pallium’s activities

Pallium and the Dr. Joshua Shadd — Pallium Canada Research Hub at McMaster University have developed an Evaluation and Research Framework to help with the study of Pallium’s programs and the impact of these programs. Led by a team of international experts and researchers from the Research Hub, this framework will inform how Pallium will evaluate programs and identify opportunities for exciting scholarship.

The framework describes key areas or constructs that need to be evaluated or studied to understand the impact of Pallium’s programs—such as LEAP and the Palliative Care ECHO Project—and their implementation. ‘Impact’ refers to the impact of the programs on participants, patients, the workplace, and the health care system. ‘Implementation’ refers to answering the questions “What works, for whom, in what respects, to what extent, in what contexts, and how?”.

Continuous evaluation is important to help with ongoing quality improvement efforts of Pallium’s work and to understand the factors that lead to success.

Building a national palliative care Atlas

The Dr. Joshua Shadd — Pallium Canada Research Hub is leading the development of a Canadian Palliative Care Atlas to map out existing strengths, areas of excellence, and gaps across regions and provinces with respect to palliative care service availability. The Atlas will showcase a graphical representation of the status of palliative care in Canada and serve to advance a systems-thinking approach to health care by identifying several benchmarks of excellence and leadership.

The project’s initial pilot was completed in 2021 and involved three regions in Ontario. The year came to a close with an agreement with the University of British Columbia to begin the implementation of a pilot in the province of BC. Lessons learned from these pilots will inform further rollout of the Canadian Palliative Care Atlas across the country in 2022.

This project is a first of its kind in Canada; no mechanism currently exists to systematically collate this data from an entire sector and to make it available in one single repository or access point.

Impact

Celebrating the impact of funder support

Each of our funding partners has a unique motivation to give, but together we know that improving the quality and accessibility of palliative care in Canada is important. The generosity of Pallium’s funding partners has ensured that health care professionals across Canada have the knowledge and skills to provide a palliative care approach to patients and families.

The stories that follow reveal the enormous impact of our funding partners’ support on the palliative care landscape in Canada.

Read LKS story
Read BI story
Read CMA story

Partnering to achieve impact

Over the course of its history, Pallium Canada has undertaken a wide range of initiatives with diverse partners across Canada—we believe in a collaborative approach to building palliative care capacity to benefit all Canadians. It is through this spirit of collaboration where we can find innovative and flexible solutions that work for the unique needs of our partners as they work to build capacity and improve palliative care for patients and their families.

Read a few examples of how Pallium Canada has helped partners built palliative care capacity and achieve impact.

Cancer Care Ontario’s INTEGRATE Project
Family Health Teams Providing Palliative Care
Paramedics Providing Palliative Care at Home

Looking for more? Read an overview of a wide range of initiatives that Pallium Canada has undertaken with provinces, territories, and health care organizations as they work to improve palliative care for patients and their families.

Contributing to thought leadership in palliative care

Pallium’s Scientific Officer and other members of the Pallium community author and co-author numerous articles contributing to the advancement of palliative care in Canada. Take a look at some of the most recent publications:

Shortages of Palliative Care Medications in Canada during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Gambling with Suffering in Healthcare Quarterly explores the nature of shortages of important drugs used in palliative care during the COVID-19 pandemic and strategies to mitigate against these shortages.
COVID-19 Personal Protective Equipment in the Home: Navigating the Complexity of Donning and Doffing in the Annals of Family Medicine and focuses on donning and doffing personal protective equipment as it relates to home visits.
Building Capacity for Palliative Care Delivery in Primary Care Settings in Canadian Family Physician focuses on a mixed methods evaluation of the INTEGRATE project, a 3-year pilot project involving interprofessional palliative care education, including our very own LEAP Core, and an integrated care model to promote early identification and support of patients with palliative care needs. [See also Pallium’s impact paper on the INTEGRATE Project.]

A complete list of Pallium’s publications and reports can be found in the Research Archive Library below.

Research Archive Library

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