Palliative Care Consultation Services

Overview

The concept of palliative care is outlined in the National Consensus Project definition:

"The goal of palliative care is to prevent and relieve suffering and to support the best possible quality of life for patients and their families, regardless of the stage of the disease or the need for other therapies.  Palliative care is both a philosophy of care and an organized, highly structured system for delivering care.  Palliative care expands traditional disease-model medical treatments to include the goals of enhancing quality of life for patient and family, optimizing function, and helping with decision-making and providing opportunities for personal growth.  As such, it can be delivered concurrently with life-prolonging care or as the main focus of care."

Palliative care differs from hospice care in that its aim is to alleviate symptoms of serious illness regardless of prognosis and with or without ongoing curative treatment.  Currently greater than 70% of U.S. acute care hospitals with more that 250 beds have instituted palliative care programs.  Care is typically delivered by a multidisciplinary team which includes physicians trained in palliative care, advanced practice nurses, social workers, chaplains, pharmacists and others, depending on a patient's unique need.  More than half of the patients receiving palliative care have a diagnosis other than cancer including patients with end-stage heart disease, chronic lung disease and stroke. Multidisciplinary palliative care consultation programs have demonstrated that they improve clinical care and symptom control as well as patient, family, and physician satisfaction.  They are also associated with significant reductions in hospital costs.

Our Plan

While Waukesha Memorial Hospital has an excellent palliative care service for cancer patients, such coordinated services are not available to other critically ill patients.  To expand the reach of our existing services, in year one, we will recruit palliative care specialists and train PHC physicians and advance practice nurses and other care providers to provide service to between 100 and 150 patients, with that number increasing to 450 by year three.  Although the program will generate some revenue through physician and nurse billing, based on national experience it is unlikely under the current reimbursement structure to be self sustaining.

Fundraising Goal:  $200,000 a year for three years, to assist with the recruitment and palliative care training of physicians and advanced practice nurses and the development of the infrastructure necessary to support the program.

If you would like to learn more about the Palliative Care Consultation Services, please contact the WMH Foundation at 262-928-4903.  If you would like to make a gift in support of this program, please click here.