Project on Death in America has generously provided grant funding to HPNA to blend the good works of Dr. Betty Ferrell with the good works of Dr. Cynda Rushton.  Dr. Ferrell has co-chaired the development of the End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium (ELNEC) curriculum with the American Association of Colleges of Nursing using the train-the-trainer model.  Members of HPNA have become trainers in this curriculum.

Simultaneously, beginning in 2000, Dr. Cynda Rushton led the development of the Johns Hopkins Leadership Academy in End-of-Life Nursing that gathered a dyad of participants from 44 nursing organizations to address end of life care within each nursing specialty.   The sustainability plan of this project is called a “community of practice” where the nearly 100 individuals will continue to stay connected to network, support and provide necessary resources to enhance the quality of end-of-life care.

Blending these projects has resulted in HPNA’s plan to do the following:

• offer nine ELNEC courses over the next three years (3/year)
• attendees are dyads made up of one chapter nursing member with one long term care nurse
• following the presentation of the two-day educational session, the participants will be connected as dyads within the local community and then will be further connected nationally in an HPNA sponsored “community of practice”
• the “community of practice” will remain connected via the HPNA website offering opportunities for these individuals to ask questions, obtain support, direction and educational resources as needed
• the project began on February 27, 2004 and will end in the spring of 2007