What is palliative care?
It's specialized care for patients with serious, advanced and/or chronic illness at any stage or age. Our goal is to provide the best possible quality of life for patients and families by focusing on relief of symptoms and defining goals of care based coordinated efforts centered on the patient's wishes, recommended medical needs, community resources and family support.
Benefits of palliative care include:
- Quality, comprehensive and patient-centered care
- Symptom management, preventing a crisis
- Decrease readmissions to the hospital
- Improved coordination of care among providers,
- Better awareness and understanding of goals (i.e. MOST/POST, DNR)
- Enhanced communication between patient/family and providers
- May be billed under Medicare
Who needs palliative care?
Patients with:
- Serious, advanced, and/or chronic illness
- Uncontrolled symptoms
- Co-morbidities
- Complicated family dynamics
- Frequent trips to the hospital or emergency room
- Need for defining goals of care or advance directives
Who provides palliative care?
- Physicians, advanced practice providers, and other team members as needed Assess the patient, make recommendations, host family meetings, and coordinate care.
- Consultative service (referrals for three primary reasons):
- Symptom management
- Advance directives
- Goals of care
For more information, please call:
How do you make a referral and what happens next?
- Referrals require an order by the patient’s physician (if the patient resides in a SNF, the SNF provider must order a palliative care consult)
- Referrals are called in or faxed to our Resource Center (see contact information below)
- Consult visit will be scheduled
- Palliative care provider will see the patient until goals for the consult are met
Where is palliative care offered?