Skip to main content

Palliative Care Mission Statement

Palliative care is life affirming and regards dying as a natural part of the human experience.
The goal of palliative care is to achieve the best possible quality of life through:
  • the relief of suffering
  • control of symptoms
  • the restoration of functional capacity while taking into account personal, cultural, religious values, beliefs, and practices of the individual patient and family concerned.

Interdisciplinary Approach:

Palliative care requires an interdisciplinary approach calling upon the expertise of, medical staff, nursing staff, care managers, social workers, chaplains and volunteers who in cooperation with family members and friends provide patient care.

Smooth Transitions between Hospital and Community Services:

Palliative care encompasses the full array institutional and community resources such as hospital, hospice, home care, long-term care, and adult day care to ensure a smooth transition between institutional settings and community services.

Five Principles of Palliative Care:

1. Palliative care respects the needs and choices of the dying person.

  • Respects your needs and wants as well as those of your family and other loved ones.
    Finds out from you who you want to help plan and give you care.
  • Helps you understand your illness and what you can expect in the future.
    Helps you look at your options concerning where you get health care, where you want to live and the kinds of services you want.
  • Helps you work together with your health care provider and health plan to solve problems.

2. Palliative care looks after the medical, emotional and religious needs of the dying person.

  • Acknowledges that dying is an important time for you and your family.
  • Offers ways for you to be comfortable and ease pain and other physical discomfort.
  • Helps you and you loved ones make needed changes if the illness gets worse.
  • Makes sure you are not alone.
  • Understands that family dynamics can be difficult when under stress especially when fears and painful feelings began to surface.
  • Forsters opportunities for you to share the things that are most important to you.
  • Helps you reflect upon what gives your life meaning so that you may finish the business of living and die at peace with yourself and others.

3. Palliative care supports the needs of loved ones

  • A philosophy of palliative care understands that families and loved ones need help, too.
  • Offers support services to family caregivers by providing counseling and respite opportunities.
  • Helps family and loved ones as they begin to come to terms with the grieving process.

4. Palliative care helps gain access to needed health care settings and providers.

  • By encouraging an interdisciplinary approach to patient care by bringing together doctors, nurses, pharmacists, pastoral caregivers, social workers and personal caregivers.
  • Appoints a care manager to ensure your care needs are met by ensuring a smooth transition between care settings.

5. Palliative care ensures quality care at the end of life.

  • Helps care providers learn about the best ways to care for dying people by providing education and needed pastoral and emotional support.
  • Seeks funding by private insures, health plans and government agencies.

Adapted Last Acts , care and caring at the end of life, Precepts of Palliative Care
George Hankins-Hull Spiritual Care Coordinator LRGHealthcare

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What is palliative care?

This draft document has been prepared by George Hankins Hull Palliative Care The aim of palliative care is to ease the suffering that results from illness. Palliative care seeks to provide treatment for your symptoms, even when the underlying disease cannot be cured. The goals of palliative care are to relieve your pain and other discomfort and to help reduce your family’s stress. In addition, palliative care seeks to provide information to help you cope and live with a chronic illness. Palliative care encompasses emotional, social, and spiritual needs as well. During the course of your illness, a palliative approach to care can help you and your family to achieve a better quality of life. To request a palliative care consultation You or your family can make a request to consult a palliative care team representative by speaking with your nurse or doctor. Your health care team also may decide to request a palliative care consult. A palliative care representative will visit you within 24...
3 comments
Read more

Improving Outcomes in Palliative Care & Hospice

Julien Olivier a CPSP colleague from New Hampshire sent me the link to this great resource below: This website could be very useful for persons seeking to be better informed concerning hospice and palliative care. Note that the course and credits (25) are FREE! Richard Payne, MD Activity Medical Director Professor of Divinity and Medicine Duke University Curriculum Outline Using the principles of palliative care, this activity is aimed at providing the clinician with the tools to evaluate patients for palliative care needs and to understand the regulations for palliative care and hospice eligibility. This curriculum is intended for pain specialists, oncologists, family practice care providers, hospice medical directors and other healthcare providers who treat patients with advanced life-threatening illnesses. In order to successfully complete this activity for AMA PRA Category 1 Credi t, learners must demonstrate performance by achieving a min...
Post a Comment
Read more

Palliative Care as an Option for PALS

Palliative care, a multidisciplinary approach to treating people with chronic illnesses, can be a viable and valuable option for people with ALS (PALS). Palliative care focuses on symptom/pain control as opposed to trying to cure an illness. It combines a robust roster of medical, spiritual and emotional services as well as support to meet each patient's individualized needs. "Palliative care is a service offered to people who have chronic illnesses and who need to focus on symptom and pain control, perhaps forsaking or delaying further curative attempts," said Julien Olivier, DMin, BCCC, Fellow in Hospice & Palliative Care and Chaplain at Wentworth-Douglass Hospital in Dover, NH. "PALS could seek palliative care at any time, beginning with their diagnosis. An expert team helps patients and their families address coping skills, anxiety, use of assistive devices, necessary support services, end-of-life issues and more." Read the full article at the lin...
Post a Comment
Read more