Palliative care is the care of patients with serious illness that focuses on providing relief from symptoms, pain and stress to improve the quality of life for patients and their families, according to the report.
The report, “Palliative Care Services: Solutions for Better Patient Care and Today’s Health Care Delivery Challenges,” discusses the benefits of palliative care and how hospital leaders can incorporate palliative care into their hospitals’ services.
The report provides the following six steps for ensuring hospitals maximize the potential of palliative care programs:
1. Convene a planning committee comprised of key hospital and healthcare system clinicians and administrative leaders.
2. Complete a needs assessment and align palliative care services with hospital and healthcare system priorities.
3. Review current priorities and identify those areas where palliative care services have been shown to improve outcomes.
4. Collect data to demonstrate the need for palliative care services and to use as baseline measures for performance improvement.
5. Learn from peer institutions that are successfully integrating palliative care services into intensive care units, emergency departments, hospitalist programs and outpatient services.
6. Develop a strategic plan and budget including new services, staffing and metrics to document program value.
More Articles on Palliative Care:
Hospitals Adding Palliative Care to Improve Services
Joint Commission Awards First Advanced Certifications for Palliative Care
NQF Endorses Quality Measures on Palliative and End-of-Life Care
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