Our Palliative Care team provides specialized, holistic medical care aimed at improving the quality of life for patients and their families facing serious illness. If you’re suffering from a serious illness, our Palliative Care professionals will work to provide an additional layer of support for both you and your family. Our team can help by working directly with your providers, offering ongoing care, symptom management, advance care planning, counseling, family support and more. Our goal is to meet you where you are at and help with what matters most to you.
Palliative care is specialized health care for people living with a serious illness, according to the Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC). This type of care is focused on providing relief from the symptoms and stress of illness. The goal is to improve quality of life for both the patient and the family.
Palliative care is provided by a trained team of doctors, nurses, and other specialists who collaborate with a patient’s other doctors to provide an extra layer of support. Palliative care is based on the needs of the patient, not on the patient’s prognosis. It is appropriate at any age and any stage in a serious illness; and can be provided along with curative treatment.
Palliative care specialists improve quality of life for patients whose needs are the most complex. Working in partnership with the primary physician, the palliative care team provides:
Numerous studies show that palliative care significantly improves patient quality of life and lowers symptom burden. Apart from being the right thing to do for patients, this improved quality of life also means that an encounter with the health care system is less stressful and traumatic for families.
Studies consistently show improvements in both quality measures and resource utilization once palliative care is introduced, according to the Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC).
National Institute of Health (NIH) researchers have studied the positive effects palliative care has on patients and their families. Recent studies show that patients who receive palliative care report improvement in:
Other studies also show that starting palliative care early in the course of an illness:
At CRMC, the Palliative Care team includes: a doctor with specialized training in Palliative Care, nurses, social workers, home care staff, oncology staff, a pharmacist, a psychologist, and a chaplain. They will collaborate with your doctor to:
Anyone with a serious illness such as: