Ms Genevieve Nolan1, Ms Janet McConville1, Ms Maral Tecer1, Prof Emily Haesler2,3, Ms Martina Otten1, Dr Noam Winter1
1Faculty of Pain Medicine – Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists, Melbourne, Australia, 2Curtin University, Perth, Australia, 3Latrobe University, Melbourne, Australia
Biography:
Genevieve Nolan works in the Faculty of Pain Medicine within the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists. She is the Project Manager for the Australian Government funded project to develop a set of Australian Standards for Health Practitioner Pain Management Education. Genevieve previously worked at Musculoskeletal Australia, the Victorian Department of Health and BreastScreen Victoria in policy and project management roles.
Abstract:
Pain is a major health concern resulting in significant health and social problems with evidence that patients experiencing pain are receiving inadequate care. Despite this, a focus on pain management knowledge and skills is lacking in health practitioner education.
The “National Strategy for Health Practitioner Pain Management Education” provides a strategic roadmap to upskill the Australian health workforce in contemporary, evidence-based pain care. This presentation details the progression of the first of the Strategy’s five goals, which aims to develop national standards for health practitioner pain management education.
Developing standards for health practitioner pain management education is a potentially sensitive exercise and requires openness, transparency and inclusivity. This is important given the standards are to be relevant across multiple disciplines and levels of education. An iterative and co-design approach has been followed throughout the project and a sound developmental method employed. This is designed to assist in securing stakeholder endorsement and adoption of the voluntary standards once finalised.
An advisory group, consisting of a diverse range of stakeholders, was created to provide guidance to the project team. National in-person and online stakeholder workshops were convened and a thematic analysis of the stakeholder workshop data conducted. The stakeholder consultation and subsequent data analysis identified seven themes for potential standards development. Review by the advisory group, the checking of their internal and external validity and the mapping of relevant documents confirmed that the identified themes were appropriate for standards development. In the end, six draft standards were released for final stakeholder consultation.