For those living with an advanced illness, the stress of having to discuss difficult topics and make complex treatment decisions all while coping with the physical discomforts of their illness can be overwhelming. Palliative care is a team-based medical subspecialty focused on providing relief from the pain and stress of serious, advanced illness. The Kaiser Permanente Institute for Health Policy’s latest policy story by Joy A. Lewis, MSW, MPH, takes a look at efforts to identify and spread best practices in palliative care, strengthen the palliative care workforce, and augment the evidence base that supports the benefits of this approach. Click here to read the full policy story.
Palliative care is intended to improve quality of life and focuses on treating the whole patient. Its services address relief from the physical ailments of advanced illness, such as pain, nausea, or insomnia. Just as importantly though, palliative services also treat emotional and mental health symptoms, such as fear, anxiety, and depression. Unlike hospice care, a term it is often confused with, palliative care is not end of life care. It can be provided alongside curative treatment at any time during the course of advanced illness.
Kaiser Permanente has offered palliative care services for over a decade, bringing together physicians, nurses, social workers, chaplains, and pharmacists to help patients understand their illness, talk more openly about their feelings, and decide what treatments they do or do not want. The documented benefits of palliative care are encouraging. Kaiser Permanente found that palliative care resulted in improved quality of care, higher patient satisfaction, improved communication and advance planning, fewer hospital admissions, decreased emergency room visits, and lower costs. Other studies have noted patients showed an improved quality of life – including fewer depressive symptoms and outlived those who received usual care alone, by three months.
As the population ages, we can expect to see an increase in the prevalence of chronic and serious illnesses. Real-world examples of successful programs, such as Kaiser Permanente’s, can provide useful information and guidance to health care institutions looking to initiate or expand their palliative care offerings. A care approach that is rooted in patient and family wishes and promotes quality of life for those living with advanced illness is the ideal standard of care.
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