Palliative Care Is Patient-Centered Care
- Palliative care helps with relieving pain and distressing symptoms
- Palliative care helps with difficult decision-making
- Palliative care helps patients continue life-prolonging or curative treatments
- Palliative care helps boost patient and family satisfaction
Support For Patients And Families
Our care provides relief from distressing symptoms and improves the quality of life for patients and families. Care can begin as soon as a patient and their provider feel it will benefit. For many, care can begin upon diagnosis of a serious condition.
Services Include:
- Expert management of pain and non-pain symptoms that can make living with a serious illness challenging
- Education about the illness and options for care
- Counseling and support
- Care coordination between primary and specialty care providers
- Social work services, including help with long-term planning and advance directives
- Crisis prevention and management planning that reflects individual needs, values and goals for care
Who Benefits From Patient-Centered Care?
- People of any age including adults and children with cancer, heart failure, kidney disease, lung disease, dementia, and other chronic or life-threatening conditions
- Individuals who feel their quality of life has been limited by symptoms such as physical or emotional pain, nausea, shortness of breath, loss of appetite and fatigue
- Patients who have had multiple hospitalizations or emergency room visits for an illness
Who Provides Palliative Care?
This care is a partnership between your primary care provider and other medical specialists including nurses and social workers, providing an extra layer of support.
What Does A Referral To Our Care Team Mean?
Referrals to palliative care are appropriate for patients and families facing difficult medical problems, pain, discomfort, or emotional uncertainty. The care allows people to live longer by reducing the pain or stress a serious illness may cause.
Do I Need To Stop Curative Or Life-Prolonging Treatment?
No. Care is available at any stage of a serious illness and can be provided along with curative treatment. The care team will help you and your family identify and communicate the goals for your medical care.
Who Pays For Patient-Centered Care?
Medicare, Medicaid, and most insurance plans cover all or part of palliative care services. Our care team will help you and your family understand your coverage.
The Palliative Care Team is located on the 3rd floor of the 1101 Maine Street Building.
If you have questions or would like to schedule an appointment, please call 217-222-6550, ext. 3787.
