PARTNERS: Inclusive Framework for Multidisciplinary Team Conversations

Presented by Martin B. Brodsky and Marta Kazandjian

Video Runtime: 50 Minutes; Learning Assessment Time: 30 Minutes

This four-part course series is designed to be taken sequentially, beginning with Course 1: Behind the Scenes With SLPs Across Models of Care in the ICU and concluding with Course 4: Swallowing Treatment: What’s Next?
Each course builds upon the knowledge from the previous one, providing learners with an understanding of ICU management for SLPs. By the final course, participants will have a well-rounded grasp of key concepts essential for effective patient care in the ICU.

Course Overview

Serious illness conversation is necessary across all multidisciplinary team members with medically fragile patients across settings. Often, in graduate, medical, and allied health programs, there needs to be more formal training in these concepts and principles. This course will define PARTNERS, an inclusive and accessible framework to help support and establish goals of care with critically ill patients. It will highlight the clinical care team’s integral role in supporting and optimizing patient-centered care and quality of life. The course will also address the application of existing conversational guides and outlines and discuss opportunities to create local rubrics to develop serious conversation skills. From here, clinicians will be able to role-play, practice, and implement these discussions at their institutions to align goals of care between the patient and the multidisciplinary team.

Learning Objectives

Examine the components and their implementation in the PARTNERS paradigm
Examine the importance of early discussions of goals of care and the integration of serious conversation skill sets with the multidisciplinary team
Develop a plan to implement PARTNERS as a tool toward successful alignment in goals of care between the multidisciplinary team and the patient

Meet your instructors

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Martin B. Brodsky

Dr. Martin Brodsky is the section head for speech-language pathology in the Department of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery within the Integrated Surgical Institute at Cleveland Clinic and is an adjunct associate professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation and pulmonary and critical care medicine at Johns Hopkins…

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Smiling woman with long brown hair and glasses, wearing a navy blazer, representing medbridge.

Marta Kazandjian

Marta Kazandjian is a clinical assistant professor and department head at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital and Stony Brook University. She is an ASHA fellow and is board-certified in both swallowing and swallowing disorders as well as in health and wellness coaching. She is an invited national and international speaker and…

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Chapters & learning objectives

1. PARTNERS Framework Defined

This chapter will define each of the eight components that comprise PARTNERS. These definitions will then be placed into context within multidisciplinary conversations across settings.

2. Application of Communication Skills: Approaches for Success

This chapter will stress the importance of early discussions of goals of care and the integration of serious conversation skill sets with the multidisciplinary team. The concepts of early timing and how to integrate these conversations within the assessment/treatment continuum will be addressed within these discussions.

3. Application of PARTNERS for Patient-Centered Goals of Care

This chapter will develop a plan to implement PARTNERS as a tool toward successful alignment in goals of care between the multidisciplinary team and the patient. Identifying the goals of care will be intertwined with the adaptation of PARTNERS along the healthcare continuum of care.

More courses in this series

Behind the Scenes With SLPs Across Models of Care in the ICU

Martin B. Brodsky and Marta Kazandjian