What is palliative care?
Curative treatments are the mainstay of traditional medicine, palliative care is compassionate care for people with progressive, chronic or life threatening illnesses. Caring for the whole person invloves the body, mind and spirit, as well as caring for and supporting those who live with and care for the ill. This is especially important for individuals who are near the end of life.

The mission of the Palliative Care Program is for a diverse, specialized team to assist patients and families impacted by a chronic, progressive, life-threatening illness by providing emotional, physical, spiritual and clinical support while focusing on quality of life issues.

Controlling pain and other discomfort in a progressive illness is critical to the patient's care. Palliative care can be a bridge between the patient, the patient's primary care physician and specialist to assure the patient gets help when needed.

What kinds of cases could benefit from palliative care?

• Recurrent hospital admissions for advanced illnesses, such as COPD and heart failure
• Difficult symptom management compromising the patient's ability to continue treatment
• Conflict among patient and family regarding illness management or treatment course
• Lack of response to curative therapies and changing goals of care
• Consideration of hospice care
• Spiritual distress and loss of hope

A palliative care consult is available to anyone facing a progressive, chronic, or life-threatening illness. Palliative care will support you as you redefine your goals while faced with an illness.

Palliative care will help:

• Keep the primary physician informed
• Connect with a wide variety of services
• Learn practical caregiving
• Explore spiritual needs
• Manage financial goals
• Obtain professional consults on managing pain, fatigue, loss of appetite, and other uncomfortable symptoms

Who is the Palliative Care Team?
The Palliative Care Team is a group of trained professionals including physicians, nurses and social workers, as well as the patient's family and friends.

Who provides the care?
The caregiver - who may be a member of the family, a friend or a neighbor - is ultimately responsible for the care of the patient. If these individuals are unable to care for the patient, they may choose to hire attendent care to assist. The Palliative Care Team may assist the patient and family/friends with finding assistance if care of the patient becomes overly difficult. There also may be community resources available to assist with such care.

How will the Palliative Care Team help?
Under the direction of your physician, the team focuses on symptom control, such as pain, nausea, fatigue, weakness, loss of appetite, shortness of breath and many others. The team also gives the patient supportive care and teaches the caregiver what to do. The aim is to bring the patient peace of mind.

Is palliative care affordable?
Part of the initial consultation is an assessment of the patient's eligibilty for insurance or other benefits. If the patient has Medicare benefits, the initial consultation is covered. The Palliative Care Team works to see that anyone needing palliative assistance receives it.

The following services are available for $90.00 per month:

• RN case manager who coordinates in conjunction with the patient's primary physician
• Patient and family education to assist in making informed choices related to care
• A monthly visit and weekly assessments by phone provided by the RN case manager
• Availability of 24 hour consultation with a RN
• Access to the volunteer program services
• A monthly social work consultation

Additional services may be obtained on a $90.00 per visit basis:

• Nursing visits more frequently than once a month
• Social work visits more frequently than once a month
• Dietician visits
• Chaplain visits

A sliding scale for palliative care services is available to patients with inadequate health insurance coverage. The sliding scale is based on total household income and number of individuals in the household. Please contact us for details.

Additional information on Palliative Care: www.getpalliativecare.org