Origins of the Brilliance Project

The Brilliant Palliative Care program started in 2017 with an aim to:

  • Identify instances of evidence-based care that are perceived to be brilliant

  • Understand how evidence-based care that is brilliant affects clinicians and the adult clients and adult carers they work with

  • Determine the conditions that help to promote brilliant evidence-based care

An ageing population, increasingly complex health systems and burgeoning technologies has resulted in more people than ever requiring palliative care (PC). As the backbone of these systems, nurses are critical to leading improvements if evidence based PC for all is to be realised. Yet, how the Clinical Practice Consultant (CPC) role might best be utilised to achieve this aim within local settings has not been fully explored.

 Objectives

The aim of this participatory study was to promote brilliant community palliative care using innovative methods.

 Methods

The study combined positive organisational scholarship (POS) with video reflexive ethnography (VRE). POS is the study of that which is positive and flourishing in organisations. VRE invites individuals to feature in and/or gather visual data, interpret that data and understand practices in situ. In collaboration with researchers, senior nurses from Northern Adelaide Palliative Service (NAPS) co-facilitated the collection and analysis of video-footage of community PC practices over a 16-month period.

 Results

Despite concerns of ‘doing research’, surveillance and exposing individual practices, filming and reviewing practice provided CPCs and the wider team the opportunity to make visible, evaluate and explain the unseen ‘complex clinical realities’ of their practice.

 Conclusions

  • Framing the study in POS and using VRE captured nurses’ imagination. This engagement with the study resulted in nurses not only developing reflexivity of clinical practice but to recognise their high-level skills and aptitude for that practice, not only as clinicians and ambassadors of high quality PC, but as budding researchers.Take a minute to write an introduction that is short, sweet, and to the point. If you sell something, use this space to describe it in detail and tell us why we should make a purchase. Tap into your creativity. You’ve got this.

  • Research capacity building in individuals and within the team

  • Improved attitudes to research and development of new skills and knowledge

  • Enhanced research profile of NAPS within NALHN and the palliative care community

  • Highlighted the many things we take for granted in our clinical practice and improved refection within the team

  • Team building:

  • Made us more open to praise and constructive input from colleagues

  • Made the team more aware of each others roles