Palliative Care Education in Assisted Living (PCEAL) Lab

Community Partners

The PCEAL program is developed in collaboration with community hospices in Florida that can offer direct care nursing and other licensed staff six continuing education credits that have been approved through CE broker. The following community hospices have partnered with the PCEAL program as USF: 

The Community Hospice of Northeast Florida has been involved with PCEAL since 2016 and has been a collaborative partner in the development of online modules and recruitment of assisted living communities that are in their service area to receive the PCEAL training and test for feasibility of the intervention.  The PCEAL research team trained six hospice nurse facilitators from Community Hospice to facilitate the sessions to ALs in The Villages and Jacksonville, FL area. 

LifePath and Pasco Hernando Hospice of Chapters Health Two area hospices that are within the umbrella organization of Chapters Health have been involved with PCEAL since 2016.  The PCEAL research team has to date trained six hospice nurse facilitators from Hernando Pasco Hospice and LifePath Hospice to facilitate the sessions to ALs in the following counties: Citrus, Hardee, Hernando, Highlands, Hillsborough, Indian River, Martin, Monroe, Okeechobee, Pasco, Pinellas, Polk and St. Lucie Counties.

Suncoast Hospice of Empath Health  has been involved with PCEAL since 2019 as a collaborative partner in recruitment and implementation of the PCEAL training in assisted living communities within their area of service. The PCEAL research team trained four hospice nurse facilitators from Empath Health to facilitate the sessions to ALs in Pinellas County.  

The USF Center for Hospice, Palliative and End-of-Life Studies  has partnered with Dr. Dobbs and the PCEAL project since 2010.  Center community and research experts helped develop the PCEAL educational materials and palliative care knowledge instruments to test for implementation in interventions. The community hospice partners are all members of the Center. 

Interested in Being a Hospice PCEAL Facilitator? 

If you are a Hospice in Florida and would like to partner with the PCEAL Lab research team to be trained as a PCEAL facilitator and offer the program to assisted living communities in your area, please contact Debra Dobbs, PI, ddobbs@usf.edu.