Support and understanding from sensitive, skilled caregivers
Our palliative care team includes professionals and clinicians with diverse training, skills and talents. Each team member is experienced in counseling individuals and families through what can be the most difficult times in their lives. The team includes:
- Specialized palliative care physicians and nurse practitioners who manage physical and emotional symptoms
- A social worker who provides counseling and coordinates care
- Healing arts practitioners who provide massage and other soothing therapies
- A spiritual care coordinator who can offer support and guidance around personal issues of meaning and purpose during times of change
- Carefully selected and trained volunteers from the community, who can provide companionship during sometimes long and lonely hospital days
- Members of our extended team, such as physical and speech therapists, hospice and home health liaisons, pharmacists and others as needed
Services for patients and loved ones
Palliative care can begin whenever a patient and clinician feel it can help. For many, this happens shortly after the diagnosis of a serious condition. Patients and their families may choose to receive these and other palliative care services:
- Expert management of pain and physical symptoms that can make living hard, through specialized palliative care physicians and nurse practitioners
- Care coordination between primary and specialty care physicians, care teams, therapists and others
- "24/7" phone availability for patients and their clinicians, in case of questions or urgent after-hours needs
- Social work and advocacy services, including practical help completing insurance forms, choosing between options for care or places to live, and creating advance directive documents and care plans
- Crisis prevention and management plans
- Support for families and friends who are grieving a person’s death
- Spiritual care and support for people of all faiths and beliefs
