Palliative Care Is Treatment Option for Complex Illnesses
Palliative care, which can provide an intermediate step toward hospice care, shows promise as a means to improve medical treatment for older patients with complex illnesses, said Dr. Sean Morrison, Vice Chair of the Geriatrics and Adult Medicine research departments at Mount Sinai Medical Center.
The goals are pain relief, mitigation of other symptoms, improvement of emotional, mental and spiritual well-being, and support of the patient's family members, according to the American Academy of Family Physicians. Palliative care also includes curative and life-prolonging therapy.
However worthy its mission as a proactive, compassionate and potentially cost-effective series of interventions on an as-needed basis, palliative care's status in the eyes of insurers, including Medicare, remains something of a medical stepchild, Dr. Morrison said during a February 2006 presentation at the West Side and Inwood IAC.
In July 2005, Mount Sinai received a $3.025 million foundation grant to establish the Hertzberg Palliative Care Institute, a research and training center for this medical specialty. Dr. Morrison is director of the center. www.mssm.edu/palliative
"To date, there has been no significant investment in building strong, evidence-based research needed to establish palliative care services as an essential component of our national health care system," said Christopher Angell, president of the Emily Davie and Joseph S. Kornfeld Foundation, which awarded the grant to Mount. Sinai to help correct this knowledge deficiency.
Researchers at Mount Sinai Medical Center and the American Hospital Association joined forces in 2005 to analyze 2003 hospital data, the latest then available, about palliative care programs nationwide. The number of palliative care programs increased to 1,027 at hospitals, or 25 percent of the total, in 2003, up from 632, or 15 percent, in 2000, their research showed.
Mount Sinai also provides direction and technical assistance to the Center to Advance Palliative Care, funded by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to provide health care professionals with training appropriate for conducting successful programs in this area of medicine. www.capc.org
The American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine also has information about the subject for health care professionals and laymen.
www.aahpm.org
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