Commentaries CONTINUING COMPETENCE IN PALLIATIVE CARE

With the growing need for quality palliative care worldwide, national and inter-national organizations are offering education and training opportunities to effec-tively prepare healthcare providers. Professional organizations, healthcare insti-tutions, and individuals share the responsibility for ensuring continued growth in knowledge, expertise, and competence for all interdisciplinary palliative clini-cians (NBCHPN, 2011). This commentary explores the concepts of competence, competency, and continuing competence as related to palliative care, presenting current resources available to healthcare providers. The National Board for Certification of Hospice and Palliative Nurses (NBCHPN®) offers certification in hospice and palliative care for all levels of nursing, and also two interdisciplinary certifications for administrators and perinatal loss care professionals. In 2010, NBCHPN ® appointed a task force to examine and clarify the concepts of competency, competence, and continuing competence in an effort to guide the certification and recertification processes and requirements for all NBCHPN ® certificants. The task force reviewed exist-ing literature and completed a concept analysis, also including a crosswalk between core competencies set forth by the American Nurses Associatio