. "7 Preparing the Workforce." Cancer Care for the Whole Patient: Meeting Psychosocial Health Needs. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2008.
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Cancer Care for the Whole Patient: Meeting Psychosocial Health Needs
inadequate numbers of faculty qualified to train and mentor students in psychosocial skills; and
insufficient specificity in accreditation and licensing standards regarding competencies in and curricula on psychosocial care.
Moreover, the lack of information systems to track developments in education and training hampers the identification of effective educational approaches. Significant efforts are needed to ensure appropriate education and training of practitioners. Educational accrediting organizations, licensing bodies, and professional societies should examine their standards, licensing, and certification criteria with an eye to developing them as fully as possible in accordance with the standard of care set forth in this report. The committee further makes the following recommendation.
Recommendation: Workforce competencies.
Educational accrediting organizations, licensing bodies, and professional societies should examine their standards and licensingand certification criteria with an eye to identifying competenciesin delivering psychosocial health care and developing them as fullyas possible in accordance with a model that integrates biomedicaland psychosocial care.
Congress and federal agencies should support and fund the establishment of a Workforce Development Collaborative on Psychosocial Care during Chronic Medical Illness. This cross-specialty,multidisciplinary group should comprise educators, consumer andfamily advocates, and providers of psychosocial and biomedicalhealth services and be charged with
identifying, refining, and broadly disseminating to health care educators information about workforce competencies, models, andpreservice curricula relevant to providing psychosocial servicesto persons with chronic medical illnesses and their families;
adapting curricula for continuing education of the existing workforce using efficient workplace-based learning approaches;
drafting and implementing a plan for developing the skills offaculty and other trainers in teaching psychosocial health careusing evidence-based teaching strategies; and
strengthening the emphasis on psychosocial health care in educational accreditation standards and professional licensing andcertification exams by recommending revisions to the relevantoversight organizations.
Organizations providing research funding should support assessment of the implementation in education, training, and clinical
