PALLIATE, a verb, means to relieve, soothe, alleviate or diminish; make a disease or its symptoms less severe or unpleasant.
Palliative care (pronounced pal-lee-uh-tiv) is specialized medical care for people living with a serious illness. It focuses on providing patients with relief from the symptoms and stress of the illness. Palliative care is based on the needs of the patient, not their prognosis. It is appropriate at any age and at any stage in a serious illness, and it can be provided along with curative or disease directed treatment. The goal is to improve quality of life for both the patient and their family.
Palliative Care: YOU are a BRIDGE - Courtesy of the Center to Advance Palliative Care
How Palliative Care Can Help Your Patient:
- Data consistently demonstrates that palliative care improves quality of care for the seriously ill, and in so doing reduces need for emergency services and hospitalization.
- Palliative care can also enhance family outcomes. This includes improved family satisfaction and quality of life, decreased depression and anxiety, better bereavement adjustment and improved survival among spouses.
- Palliative care can lower costs through prevention of symptom crises, reducing depression, supporting family caregivers, and matching treatments with patient’s priorities.
How this Partnership Can Help You:
Innovative and proprietary products and programming are available to our 17 long-term care partners from Atlantic Health System’s Department of Palliative Care, under the New Jersey Department of Health Long Term Care Facility Collaboration for Resilience.
This includes on-demand content to allow flexibility, as well as live, interactive facilitation with our expert Atlantic Health System team members.
These resources will help you:
- Integrate palliative and end-of-life care into the facility in a meaningful and sustainable way.
- Give your team members access to tools and practical skill development to help improve conversations with patients and their families about goals of care and advance care planning in the management of their serious illness.
- CAPC Membership
- As the nation’s leading resource in its field, the Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC) provides health care professionals and organizations with training, tools, and technical assistance to enhance the quality of health care for people living with a serious illness.
- Participation in the Community Palliative Care Learning Collaborative
- Atlantic Health System's collaborative includes a proprietary web-based portal, print and video content, webinars, professional education credits, and an Atlantic Health System expert facilitation team working one-on-one with your facility for the year.
- Videos for Health Care Professionals
- These videos about palliative care and advance care planning are available on demand. We also offer the option for live, interactive webinars with Atlantic Health System expert facilitators.
- Videos and Resources for Patients and Families
- These videos and printed materials address challenging topics around Advance Care Planning.
- Palliative and Integrative Care Expert Facilitators
- Interdisciplinary team members from Atlantic Health System palliative care and integrated care will work one-on-one with your facility champions. Our role is to guide, educate, train and provide support for your team toward the goal of integrating these teachings in a meaningful and sustainable way that works for you.
- National Health Care Decisions Day Starter Kit
- All facilities were mailed a starter kit with materials needed to participate in National Healthcare Decisions Day (traditionally the day after taxes April 16). The kit includes best-in-class Conversation Project guides for residents and their families. Along with other items, we provided an introduction to Atlantic Health System's palliative care teams and healthcare provider guides for engaging in advance care planning conversations with patients.
Videos for Health Care Providers:
Goals of Care Conversations and What Matters to Your Patient
Documenting Goals of Care: Practitioner Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment
Discussing goals of care and advance care planning can be a challenge. Atlantic Health System presents this instructional video for health care providers, which covers how to start a conversation about goals of care, strategies for engaging with patients and their loved ones, and how best to manage other care considerations.
The role of a Practitioner Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment, or POLST, is an important one, as it can ensure appropriate medical treatment that is aligned with patient preferences for those who have a limited life expectancy. This video from Atlantic Health System summarizes for health care providers what a POLST is, why it is important, and its role in end-of-life care.
A Conversation about Palliative Care
Understanding palliative care is an important part of treating patients living with a serious illness. This video, developed by Atlantic Health System, summarizes key considerations around what palliative care is, how to integrate primary palliative care into your practice and when to refer for specialized care, and tips for physicians on how to talk with patients and their loved ones about palliative care.
Anna's Story
This powerful video illustrates the importance of advance care planning, and highlights the impact it has on patient, family members, caregivers, and health care providers.
Videos for Patients, Family Members, and Caregivers
These topics were selected to help prepare and educate families on why advance care planning is important. The videos are each about 5 minutes long and are designed to be either viewed independently or as an entire package. They provide respectful, considerate messaging that is easier for patients and families to thoughtfully consider prior to meeting with the health care provider. Each video is available on demand for optimized viewing.
Billing for Advance Care Planning
If you are a member of the Center to Advance Palliative Care, you can use your login to access resources about billing.
- Billing and Coding for Advance Care Planning (ACP) Services: Requirements, best practices, documentation requirements, and time thresholds for Advance Care Planning (ACP) services. View presentation >
- 'Prolonged Services Billing With Face-to-Face Patient Contact: Billing for prolonged services with direct face-to-face contact. View presentation >
