Palliative Care in the Home: Why It’s Important and How to Get Started

Addressing the Need

If you have ever considered starting a palliative care program in the community, you are already keenly aware of the need. Studies show that people facing serious illness prefer to be in their own environment. Palliative care in the community setting—defined as care outside of the hospital—focuses on providing palliative care through established delivery systems, such as home care and hospice, as well as collaborative partnerships with service agencies and individual clinicians. The point is to maintain a person’s life at home or place of residence by maximizing quality of life, optimizing function and providing care that supports their goals and preferences.

Here, CAPC Consultant Connie Dahlin explains why palliative care in the home can be beneficial to both patients and clinicians.

How to Get Started

At present, there are not enough established palliative care support systems to enable high quality palliative care—or to promote it. To fully develop these systems and the partnerships necessary to deliver this level of care in the home requires needs assessment, planning, development and implementation.

In this video, Connie offers top tips for starting a palliative care program that treats patients in the home.

Support from CAPC

CAPC has the resources to help you build your program. Both specialists and non-specialist clinicians can access tools, training and technical assistance. Members benefits include the full CAPC curriculum—with free CME/CEUs—a variety of webinars, and virtual office hours that provide real-time access to experts in the field, as well as much more. Click here for more information.