Palliative Care

Palliative Care is active, total care for people with advanced medical illness, especially chronic and progressive life-limiting conditions. The primary goal of palliative care is to help patients and their families live as fully and comfortably as possible and have the best possible quality of life by helping to relieve their suffering.

Hoag Hospital’s Palliative Medicine Consult Service

Patients who are facing serious illness often have special needs. Palliative Medicine is the medical specialty designed to meet those needs. Palliative Medicine specialists treat pain, symptoms and stress that can occur when fighting serious illness.

The Palliative Medicine Consult Service is a program of Hoag Hospital that supports our mission to provide the best quality medical care to our patients. The service consists of a specially trained team of doctors, nurses, social workers and chaplains. We work with the patient’s doctors to coordinate care, control distressing symptoms and give the patient the highest quality of life possible. We can provide care before, during and after disease treatment.

Palliative Medicine Team Mission: Provide ongoing education, support and consultation to healthcare professionals, seriously ill patients and their families to assure relief of suffering and to improve the quality of living and dying.

What the Palliative Medicine Team provides for patients

The Palliative Medicine Team can provide physical, emotional, social and spiritual needs during trying times. The team coordinates our services with physicians so everyone is clear about the goals for treatment. The team can help:

Relieve worry, anxiety and depression.
Preserve dignity through your illness.
Address spiritual needs, questions and concerns.
Coordinate your going home with the appropriate community services, if possible.

Palliative Medicine Consult Services include

Managing pain and other symptoms
Finding the meaning of the illness
Evaluating changing goals of care
Dealing with family issues
Finding support for a caregiver
Providing emotional and spiritual support
Promoting well-being and peace of mind
Achieving the best possible quality of life

What kinds of patients benefit from Palliative Medicine?

Seriously ill and/or dying patients whose distressing symptoms like pain, nausea and shortness of breath are difficult to manage.
Patients and families who are struggling with decision-making about complex medical issues, such as whether to continue treatment of the disease, or to focus on comfort measures.
Patients and families who goals of care appear conflicting or confused.
Patients in need of coordination of care through the course of a serious illness.
Patients who need assistance in coordinating discharge to community services.
Patients with repeated hospital admissions for their chronic illness, like heart failure or chronic lung disease.

Help for Families

When someone is very sick, the entire family is affected. That is why the team works closely with the family to discuss treatment options for their loved one. The Palliative Medicine Team helps the family with difficult medical decisions and maintains good communication between the patient, family members and the entire hospital healthcare team. Emotional support is provided during this difficult time.

The Palliative Medicine Team works to arrange any needed services when it time for the patient to leave the hospital, to make sure that he or she continues to receive the best care, whether at home or in some other setting.

When Palliative Care is Appropriate

Any patient with a serious illness can benefit from palliative care.
Palliative care provides specialized treatment of pain, discomfort and stress at any stage of illness, and is designed to help support treatment the patient is already receiving.
It is best introduced early in the patient’s care, but can be received at any time, including during and after curative treatment.

Arrange for a Palliative Medicine Consult

Patients and their families can ask their doctor for a consultation from the Palliative Medicine Team. For general information about the Palliative Medicine Consult Service, contact 949/764-8096.

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