Palliative Care Key Facts
“Palliative care (is) one of the fastest-growing fields in medicine.”
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HealthCare Chaplaincy is a thought leader for quality, accessible and affordable palliative care.
Q: What is palliative care and how can it help you?
A: Palliative care helps patients and their families make informed decisions about their treatment options that are consistent with their values.
Palliative care helps the whole person – body, mind and spirit.
Palliative care helps patients with a serious, life-changing illness live as well as they can for as long as they can.
Q: When can you receive palliative care?
A: You can receive palliative care at any stage of a serious illness, whether it is potentially curable, chronic or life-threatening.
Q: Isn’t palliative care the same as hospice care?
A: No. You can receive palliative care at any stage of a serious illness, whether that illness is potentially curable, chronic or life-threatening. Hospice is a type of palliative care for people who likely have six months or less to live. In other words, hospice care is always palliative, but not all palliative care is hospice care.
Q: Who is palliative care appropriate for?
Dr. Diane Meier answers in short video: http://ow.ly/7MOVY
Q: Who is on the palliative care team?
A: Physicians, nurses, professional chaplains, social workers, and others.
Q: How many U.S. hospitals offer palliative care?
A:80% of U.S. hospitals with more than 300 beds, which is where most people with complex or serious illness find themselves, now have a palliative care program.
(Source: Diane Meier, MD, Director, Center to Advance Palliative Care)
1455 hospitals report having a palliative care program, a 130% increase from 2000.
(Source: National Palliative Care Research Center 2009)
Q: What is the connection between palliative care and chaplains?
A: Palliative care is attentive to the needs of the whole person – body, mind, and spirit. So, too, is chaplaincy care. As members of the palliative care team, professional chaplains assist patients and families in difficult circumstances to find meaning and bring them comfort.
A 2009 consensus conference of more than 50 physicians, nurses, professional chaplains, social workers, professors, and university level researchers sponsored by the Archstone Foundation concluded that:
- Spirituality supports the best possible quality of life for patients and their families.
- A board certified professional chaplain should be the spiritual care professional on the palliative care team.
Q: What are the implications of palliative care for public health care policy?
A: Palliative care can significantly improve patient satisfaction and save an
estimated $6 billion a year by avoiding expensive treatments that patients and
families do not want.
(Source: R. Sean Morrison, MD, President. American Academy of Hospice and Palliative
Medicine)
Q: What is an Advance Directive?
It is a living will that allows you to document your wishes concerning medical treatments at the end of life. We encourage you to read from from the New York Times "Making Your Wishes Known at the End of Life" by Pauiline W. Chen, M.D.
Nathan Kottkamp, Chair of National Healthcare Decisions Day, writes:
Advance directive documents are only a piece of the puzzle. It is the conversation and the thought that goes into these documents that is absolutely crucial. Furthermore, advance planning is a process, it should be revisited often.
National Healthcare Decisions Day (www.nationalhealthcaredecisionsday.org), exists to encourage the public to take action with respect to their own advance healthcare planning and to ensure that providers are doing a better job of incorporating stated wishes into the delivery of care.
If you haven’t discussed and documented your wishes, do so now. If you have, take the opportunity to revisit your previous choices, be sure they remain current, and make sure your loved ones are aware of those wishes.
Find more information at the Advance Directives/Living Will links below.
Palliative Care Information Links:
getpalliativecare.org website – provides clear, comprehensive palliative care information for people coping with serious, complex illness.
Click here for their one page “What should you know about palliative care?”
The Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC) provides health care professionals with the tools, training and technical assistance necessary to start and sustain successful palliative care programs in hospitals and other health care settings.
Interview with palliative care pioneer Dr. Diane Meier , Director of The Center to Advance Palliative Care, on how people struggle with serious, sometimes terminal, illness: Watch video. Read transcript.
MSNBC/Kaiser Health News series on the benefits of palliative care.
Transcript of national roundtable discussion of palliative care experts.
Findings about the role of spirituality and professional chaplains within palliative care by an All-Star panel of physicians, nurses, professional chaplains, social workers, professors, and university level researchers.
Palliativedoctors.org website – from the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine
Palliative Care is Comfort Care -- from the National Cancer Institute
Spirituality resources for health care professionals from City of Hope Pain & Palliative Care Resource Center -- includes City of Hope publications and other resources relating to spirituality in health care including articles relating to cross-cultural topics. There is a listing of tools for assessing spirituality and spiritual concerns, links to organizational position statements relating to spirituality, and recommended publications.
Advance Directives/Living Will Information Links:
Caring Connections – for Advance Directives information including for every state
Caring Conversations: making your wishes known for end-of-life care
Five Wishes – talking about and planning for care at the end of life
“Study: Living Wills Often Prove Useful” from National Public Radio
National Healthcare Decisions Day – a national day to inform and act
“Legal Guide for the Seriously Ill – Seven Key Steps to Get Your Affairs in Order” published by the American Bar Association on Law and Aging for the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization.
Two excellent professional blogs: Pallimed (“a hospice and palliative medicine blog”) and GeriPal (“a geriatrics and palliative care blog”)
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