How does a palliative care consult help?
A palliative care consult provides:
- Expert pain and symptom management
- Time for listening and being there
- Guides patients and families in hard treatment choices
- Social worker access eases concerns and distress through support and service management
- Assists in end-of-life decisions like CPR, resuscitation, breathing and feeding tubes and repeat hospital stays
How is palliative care different than hospice?
Any patient with any long-term, progressive illness can have palliative care.
A patient receiving palliative care can have both aggressive medical treatment and palliative care for symptoms.
A patient receiving hospice care has made the decision to focus on comfort care instead of the cure of the illness.
How does a patient receive palliative care?
A patient’s doctor will order a palliative care consult. A team member may ask the doctor to order a consult. The team meets with the patient and family and talks about topics unique to their situation. The team then discusses their findings and makes recommendations to the referring doctor. The palliative care team follows the patient in the hospital with the medical team and provides ongoing support.
