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Redefining Hope Guiding Principle: Ministry Identity CARING FOR THOSE SUFFERING WITH CHRONIC DISEASE is a special kind of ministry. It takes a unique caregiver, a specific approach and a dedicated organization to help the sickest members of our communities get the treatment they need when they need it most.
Palliative care is defined by the World Health Organization as care that improves the quality of life of the patients and families who face life-threatening illness, by providing pain and symptom relief, spiritual and psychosocial support from diagnosis to end of life and bereavement. “In the past, we would see patients struggling with chronic diseases, but unfortunately we weren’t centering our care for them appropriately to meet their specific goals,” says Lisa Pantaleone, RN, Director of Renal Services at Provena St. Mary’s Hospital. As a result, the hospital initiated a comprehensive inpatient palliative care program to bridge the specialties of nursing, medicine, social work and pastoral care. The Palliative Care Team, which includes a physician, an advanced care practice nurse, a social worker, and a chaplain, addresses the patient’s goals regarding pain and symptom management and advance care planning. The team has also identified many ways in which palliative care can improve different outcomes like clinical results, increases in patient satisfaction and enhancements in staff morale. “There has been an improvement in the disparity between what the patient wants and what is being offered – we are able to provide more holistic care,” says Pantaleone. “I remember a dialysis patient who suffered from leukemia. She wasn’t able to identify the care she wanted, which was causing an even more stressful situation for her. We conducted a palliative care consult to find out how aggressive she wanted to be with her treatment and discovered her main goal was to stay out of the hospital or a nursing home. We were able to tailor her care so she could return home, discontinue dialysis and spend her remaining days with her family at her side.” Palliative care consults can prove beneficial in other ways, as well. Making sure all goals are aligned with the patient’s wishes helps to alleviate any potential tension between caregivers, patients and their families, and helps to make transitions from home to a hospital or long term care facility much more seamless. A commitment to palliative care helps our caregivers transcend beyond addressing patients’ physical needs. “We had a patient who was doing poorly. She revealed during her palliative care consult that she wanted to be baptized while she was in the hospital, and we were able to facilitate that request for her,” remembers Peter LaMotte, Director of Social Services at Provena St. Mary’s. “We had another patient who was no longer coherent, but we were able to take his handprints so his children had memories of their father. We know how to take care of a patient’s physical or medical needs, but palliative care lets us go beyond that.” And it’s a commitment that not many care providers make. In fact, Provena Health ministries were a part of fewer than 1,500 hospitals in the United States that offered palliative care as of 2007, according to the American Hospital Association. “Palliative care exemplifies Provena’s mission of compassionately responding to human need,” shares Pantaleone. “In cases where healing is not possible, hope takes on a different definition – hope for their remaining days, how the patient chooses to spend it, and ultimately how the patient chooses to be remembered.” |
“Many people equate palliative care with end of life, but it’s
much more extensive than that,” says Dr. Lynn McDonald, Medical Director of
Palliative Care at Provena St. Mary’s Hospital in Kankakee. “There was an unmet
need in caring for end of life issues and patient-centered care and,
unfortunately, in 21st century medicine, we haven’t always made it a priority.
The Palliative Care Team at Provena St. Mary’s has helped us come a long way in
learning how important that kind of care is to our patients.”