For Immediate Release
(Bryn Mawr, PA, April 15, 2015) – Two Main Line Health (MLH) Nurse Educators, Kelli Anspach and Laura Bruce, have been given the 2014 End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium (ELNEC) award for their commitment to improving end-of-life care across MLH and in the community.
After attending the ELNEC train-the-trainer course in October 2013, Anspach and Bruce quickly went to work planning and implementing the ELNEC program across MLH. With the support of Barbara Wadsworth, Senior Vice President and Chief Nursing Officer at Main Line Health, the two used existing evidence to show potential return on investment. Grant money was awarded through a community partnership and supplemented by a generous family donation.
“Kelli and Laura have dedicated so much time and energy into implementing this project at MLH, and they are truly deserving of this recognition,” says Wadsworth. “The mission of the ELNEC project is of great importance, providing necessary education to nursing staff to improve end-of-life care for both the patient and their family. I am so proud of Kelli and Laura for their commitment to this sacred work.”
The ELNEC project is a national education initiative to improve palliative care. The project provides health care providers with tools to support the palliative care team in providing end of life nursing care for patients and their families. Topics include cultural/spiritual considerations, communication, pain/symptom management, death and dying, and loss and grief, among others.
In 2014, Anspach and Bruce held seven ELNEC Core Training courses and had a total of 314 participants, including nurses with and without experience with end of life care, case managers, social workers, chaplains and other health care providers interested in improving palliative care. They also created a simplified class for patient care technicians, unit secretaries, and nursing assistants that they held twice with 46 participants. They are measuring RN self-efficacy outcomes via a validated tool and are currently working on nursing research to capture correlation between ELNEC attendance and HCAHPS scores.
About Main Line Health
Founded in 1985, Main Line Health (MLH) is a not-for-profit health system serving portions of Philadelphia and its western suburbs. At its core are four of the region’s respected acute care hospitals — Lankenau Medical Center, Bryn Mawr Hospital, Paoli Hospital and Riddle Hospital — as well as one of the nation’s premier facilities for rehabilitative medicine, Bryn Mawr Rehab Hospital; Mirmont Treatment Center for drug and alcohol recovery; and the Home Care Network, a home health service. Main Line Health also consists of Main Line HealthCare, one of the region’s largest multi-specialty physician networks, and the Lankenau Institute for Medical Research, a non-profit biomedical research organization located on the campus of Lankenau Medical Center. Main Line Health also consists of four outpatient health centers located in Broomall, Collegeville, Exton and Newtown Square. Main Line Health hospitals, with more than 10,000 employees and 2,000 physicians, are the recipients of numerous awards for quality care and service, including recognition among Truven Health Analytics’ list of Top 100 Hospitals and top 20% of health systems in the nation, and Magnet®, the nation’s highest honor for nursing excellence. Main Line Health is among the area’s leaders in medicine, providing advanced patient-centered care, education and research to help our community stay healthy.
