NHPCO call to action on palliative care
Organization hopes to increase access
The National Hospice & Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO) has issued a "call to action" and position statement outlining that organization's expectation that palliative care will become available to all patients in critical care settings.
The organization in its statement notes that "more than one out of five deaths in the United States occurs during or following admission to an intensive care unit."
"NHPCO agrees with the Supreme Court ruling of 1999 . . . which recognized that there should be no impediments to excellent management of pain. Thus, palliative care is a right of every patient, including those in the critical care settings. NHPCO strongly advocates and supports the provision of palliative care for seriously ill and dying patients and their families in critical care settings.
The organization uses the National Quality Forum definition to define palliative care as "patient and family-centered care that optimizes quality of life by anticipating, preventing, and treating suffering. Palliative care throughout the continuum of illness involves addressing physical, intellectual, emotional, social and spiritual needs and facilitating patient autonomy, access to information, and choice."
Linda Grilley, RN, MSN, who chaired the task force that developed the statement, says that "there is consensus on the feeling that we can always improve on the provision of care in critical care settings. It's a critical environment — there is much, much going on, and palliative care is an important element to that."
Grilley said the NHPCO wanted to voice an "organizational commitment to education and looking at . . . models of practice — do they have the infrastructure to support palliative care in critical care settings?"
She said it is important for the entire health care system to address palliative care in this setting – and for all providers of such care, "whether it's the physician, the nurse, the social worker, the chaplain, whomever is providing critical care services."
The position statement emphasizes that "the provision of palliative care in the critical care setting is not synonymous with end-of-life care."
To achieve the desired results will require "collaboration among healthcare professionals, changes in education processes, utilization of evidence-based practice, application of ethical principles, and improvements in health care systems," the position statement indicates.
The NHPCO also calls for the use of evidence-based practices in the delivery of palliative care, particularly the use of "high-quality, patient- and family-centered research, coupled with expert opinions" and applied to specific patients and their families.
Palliative care, Grilley says, "is not just a good thing to do; it's based on evidence that it is a vital responsibility for providers to embrace."
Sources
For more information, contact:
- Linda Grilley, RN, MSN, chair of the task force developing the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization position statement on palliative care. E-mail: [email protected].
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