e-ELCA is an important tool supporting the range of National End of Life Care Programme activities across the social and health care workforce. It delivers accessible, easily digestible e-learning materials in the 4 core modules of assessment, advance care planning, communication skills, and symptom management and maintaining comfort and wellbeing, regardless of the underlying condition. These sessions are written to encourage joint learning across both health and social care sectors. It is vital to the delivery of quality end of life care that professionals understand each other and the integrated roles they play. Joint learning is a key step towards a shared understanding of the delivery of that care.
Like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, these sessions are intended to complement and support a variety of learning experiences at work and in the classroom setting. They enable those who are new to this area to gain some basic knowledge pieces of learning, encouraging them to take this further, and others to build on prior learning. Those with an interest in specific areas, such as end-stage heart, lung or kidney conditions, or dementia, will be able to use other learning opportunities to add to this jigsaw.
The jigsaw is never complete: as learning grows, more and more pieces are added, the overall result taking on different shapes depending on what learning the individual chooses (or needs) to pursue. As the jigsaw grows, the image becomes more visible and clear. Such understanding and insight will lead to better quality care for those nearing the end of their lives, their families, and increased satisfaction for the learner.
Each highly interactive e-learning session is written by clinicians and other experts in their particular field and is extensively peer reviewed. Each session is around 20 minutes in length and may incorporate a variety of features: self-assessment tools, audio/video clips, case studies etc. In addition to the four core areas specified by the End of Life Care Strategy and an additional module on Integrating Learning launched in January 2010, three more modules (Social Care, Bereavement and Spirituality) and 5 additional sessions within the Integrating Learning module were launched in May 2011.
Two types of documents have been developed to help you to use the e-ELCA programme:
Both documents are also available in the course library within e-ELCA for those using the e-LfH LMS.
