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Palliative Care
About Palliative Care
Palliative care at Meritus Medical Center is founded on the belief that providing people with the information they need to help facilitate decision-making is a basic foundation of health care and caregiving. By providing information and emotional support throughout the decision-making process, we help patients and their families become actively involved in their health care, leading to greater patient and family satisfaction and an improved quality of life.
Our team of palliative care doctors, nurses, social workers and others support staff work together with a patient’s other doctors to provide an extra layer of support. It is appropriate at any age and at any stage in a serious illness and can be provided along with curative treatment.
Frequently Asked Questions
What to expect when receiving palliative care.
Chronic diseases have a progressive nature, resulting in increases of disease severity, signs, or symptoms. Through interdisciplinary planning, chronic diseases can become less stressful as symptom management becomes a priority.
Our palliative care services team includes:
- Social Workers
- Pain Specialists
- Chaplains
- Nurses
Palliative Care Services can adopt a plan of care to treat the whole person, not just the illness. This advanced care planning is an integral part of palliative care.
Advanced care planning often consists of conversations about emotional and spiritual issues. A palliative care specialist, social worker, or patient advocate is available to assist with these sometimes difficult conversations and advanced care planning overall in a calm and objective manner. A specialist can help with the process of naming a health care agent—the person who will make decisions for the patient when the patient can no longer do so. Specialists also can assist the health care agent with initiating discussions about preferences for treatment to ensure patient wishes are honored.
What is palliative care?
The Centers for Advanced Palliative Care defines palliative care as:
Palliative care, and the medical sub-specialty of palliative medicine, is specialized medical care for people living with serious illness. It focuses on providing relief from the symptoms and stress of a serious illness. The goal is to improve quality of life for both the patient and the family.
Palliative care is provided by a team of palliative care doctors, nurses, social workers and others who work together with a patient’s other doctors to provide an extra layer of support. It is appropriate at any age and at any stage in a serious illness and can be provided along with curative treatment.
By respecting patients’ wishes for treatment, aggressively managing painful or distressing symptoms, and honoring decision-making based on sound information, Palliative Care Services provides patients and their network of family and friends an opportunity to make the most of their time.