The American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine in March appointed Kristina Newport, MD, as chief medical officer for the organization.
Dr. Newport currently serves as chief of palliative care for Hershey, Pa.-based Penn State Health. She recently spoke with Becker’s about her priorities as AAHPM’s new CMO, as well as the role palliative care can play in oncology.
Editor’s note: Responses have been lightly edited for clarity and length.
Question: Congratulations on your appointment, what are your top priorities in this new role?
Dr. Kristina Newport: Thank you. It’s really a privilege to be in this role and give back to the organization that raised me up. I’ve been a member of the Academy since 2007 when I was a medical resident, so the academy really has guided my career.
One of my first priorities is to understand our members’ needs. I literally just got off the phone with a member who leads one of our special interest groups. We want to help our members provide quality hospice and palliative care. Our members’ needs change so rapidly, they have different challenges and opportunities every day. We want our organization to be a home, a community for them and the go-to resource for them to provide quality hospice and palliative care.
My second priority is developing and strengthening the relationships we have with other organizations who share our mission. Taking care of people with serious illness is really hard and there is no one group that owns serious illness across the spectrum. We want to continue and strengthen our relationships with other organizations so that we can support each other and find the synergies so that we are utilizing our resources in the right way.
Q: The healthcare industry is under increasing pressure to deliver value-based, patient-centered care. How does palliative medicine fit into that broader conversation and what role should it play in health system strategy?
KN: This is an easy one for us, because the foundations of palliative care are to prioritize what matters to patients and address the whole person through human connections and relationships. We have strong evidence in the literature that says when we do that well, we decrease non-beneficial treatment and improve the patient’s well-being, as well as the well-being of people that care for them. At the same time, we decrease unnecessary costs in the healthcare system while improving healthcare worker satisfaction. We joke that palliative care met the Quadruple Aim before that term even existed. It’s just always been who we are and what we prioritize.
Healthcare systems benefit when they look to the palliative care model and principles when faced with major decisions. All of the various goals of value-based medicine are at the core of what we do. When you keep that North Star of patient healing and alleviating suffering, all the other parts of a value-based framework come along.
I think this too is why we are seeing more palliative care leaders emerging as effective leaders outside of the palliative care space, within healthcare boards, departments and systems. We are accustomed to looking at really difficult situations and maintaining a clear mandate to help people live as long and as well as they can.
Q: Do you feel awareness of palliative care’s importance during earlier stages of serious illness is growing within the industry?
KN: Absolutely, there’s definitely growing awareness. Healthcare systems are now expected to have palliative care programs, and those programs are expected to be involved in more places than just the ICU or the cancer clinic. I think recognition is growing of the value of both specialty and primary palliative care, but also primary palliative care.
As the patient population grows older, we’re seeing more and more requests for the application of palliative care principles in places like orthopedics. When older adult patients have a hip fracture, physicians are thinking a little bit differently about what interventions are appropriate and how to better support patients that maybe aren’t recovering the same way that a younger population does.
Q: What are the biggest barriers to wider adoption or integration of palliative care?
KN: I think it’s important to answer this question for both primary and specialty palliative care. In terms of primary palliative care — it’s hard to face serious illness. It’s hard for physicians to admit that we can’t fix everything, especially if we are still functioning in payment programs that incentivize doing more. It’s easier to do more than to have the difficult conversation.
In those situations the academy, and we as individual hospice and palliative care clinicians, are always offering education and support to the folks that are facing that every day — so that they have the words to have those conversations, they have the time to have those conversations, and they have the support to do that.
In specialty palliative care, while there is widespread acknowledgment of the need for palliative care in many different healthcare settings, I think there’s still opportunity for greater understanding and appreciation of the way palliative care can be delivered in order to be effective. Our evidence base tells us that effective palliative care is not just a palliative care physician or nurse practitioner — it’s an interdisciplinary team. The real effect takes place over time, particularly in the outpatient setting. We know that it’s an iterative process of multiple conversations and building rapport with patients, sometimes over a year or more, to really have a meaningful impact.
We have a lot of opportunities to partner with organizations that are not just physicians, but our social work and nursing colleagues, our chaplains, pharmacists and therapists. Making sure they have a seat at the table and that their voice is heard.
Q: Can you speak more to the growing integration of palliative care principals within oncology?
KN: I really appreciate the dialogue that’s happening in oncology. As oncologists have access to more and more amazing life-saving and life-changing treatments, it gets more and more challenging to have those conversations with patients about whether treatment is the right thing for them or not.
I’m in awe of my oncology colleagues who are able to align their patients’ goals with these amazing treatments.
It’s also great to see cancer survival studies incorporating quality-of-life measures because it’s not just about extending the days. It’s being sure to include the patient’s perspective and values to ensure the treatment is helping them live a life that they find acceptable.
