Movement toward collaboration in clinical palliative care

More hospitals are developing programs for patients with serious illnesses.

By Damon Adams, AMNews staff. Aug. 20, 2001.

Russell Portenoy, MD, and his department are at the forefront of palliative care.

Dr. Portenoy's pain medicine and palliative care department at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City was among the first departments of its kind. Today, it offers expert palliative care consultation, features a 14-bed inpatient unit and boasts eight physicians and more than 20 nurses.

The department, started in 1997, is an example of how palliative care is catching on. It is spotlighted in a new report, "Building Hospital Palliative Care Programs: Lessons from the Field," by the United Hospital Fund of New York.

"There's clearly a palliative care movement happening in the country now," Dr. Portenoy said. "We have just now caught a wave."

The report, released in July, details the experiences of Beth Israel and four other New York City hospitals that received $1.1 million in grants from the fund over two years to develop clinical palliative care services.

The other four hospitals examined in the study were: Mount Sinai School of Medicine and Mount Sinai Hospital; Saint Vincent's Hospital and Medical Center of New York; Brooklyn Hospital Center; and Montefiore Medical Center.

The report gives recommendations for developing palliative care programs in hospitals. Among them:

• Identify needs for palliative care in the hospital.
• Build broad-based institutional leadership and support.
• Get the support of senior physicians at the hospital.
• Incorporate family caregivers in end-of-life care.