Covenant Health Palliative Care

Covenant Health Palliative Care focuses on managing symptoms in patients with acute, chronic, or life-threatening illnesses – regardless of the diagnosis. As patients reach the end of life or need long-term care, the patient or patient’s family may need a palliative care team to provide medical, social, emotional, and practical support.

What is palliative care?

Symptoms might include pain, nausea, shortness of breath, and fluid retention. Palliative care strives to help patients better understand treatment options and customize treatments for individual needs. The goal is to promote the highest quality of life for patients and their families.

How palliative care works

Palliative care can be delivered on an inpatient and outpatient basis anytime during a patient’s illness. Palliative care can be provided throughout treatment for a serious illness and may be provided in conjunction with all other medical treatments.

Covenant Health’s palliative care team

Covenant Health palliative care uses an interdisciplinary team of healthcare professionals to address physical, emotional, and spiritual needs. The team looks at the whole person, which also includes family members, and works with the patient and family to establish individualized goals of care. Regular family meetings are an essential component of our palliative care program. The palliative care team includes:

• Primary physician
• Palliative care medical director
• Palliative care nurse practitioner
• Certified palliative care nurses
• Case managers
• Social workers
• Rehabilitation specialists
• Pharmacists
• Chaplains
• Volunteers

The palliative care team supports you and your family every step of the way by controlling symptoms and by helping you understand treatment options and goals. The palliative care team also works with your physician to provide an extra resource for support.

Covenant Health palliative care benefits include:

• Expert management of pain and other symptoms
• Education for patients and families about the disease process, treatment options, and prognosis
• Assistance in understanding treatment options and goals of care
• Guidance in navigating the healthcare system
• Emotional and spiritual support for patients and families
• Help to identify spiritual or religious concerns
• Aid in advance care planning
• Help with accessing community resources

How is palliative care different from hospice care?

• Palliative care is available at any time during a serious or life-threatening illness. It is for patients receiving treatment who need help managing pain and other symptoms.
• Hospice care is for terminally ill patients with a prognosis of six months or less if the disease runs its normal course and curative or life-prolonging treatments have been stopped. You do not have to be in hospice to receive palliative care.

How to get palliative care

• Patients already established with Covenant Health Oncology Group may receive palliative care on an outpatient basis.
• Inpatient palliative care is available at Fort Sanders Regional Medical Center, Methodist Medical Center, and Parkwest Medical Center with a physician consult.

Ask your doctor for a Covenant palliative care referral if you feel you or your family member would benefit from Covenant palliative care services.

Tips for talking with your doctor about palliative care:

There are quite a few ways you can bring up palliative care to your doctor. Remember to be as transparent as possible as use the following tips to guide you in your search for care that meets your needs. Tips include:

• Asking your doctor to explain your illness and treatment options.
• Explaining to your doctor what quality of life means to you. This list may include being able to spend time with loved ones, having pain and other distressing symptoms treated aggressively, the ability to make your own decisions for care, and your preferred location of treatments (home vs. in the hospital).
• Informing your doctor of any personal, religious, or cultural beliefs, values or practices that are important to consider in your care and treatment decisions.
• Telling your doctor what curative treatments you may or may not want, including:
  • resuscitation if your heart were to stop
  • being placed on a mechanical ventilator if your lungs were to fail
  • undergoing dialysis if your kidneys were to fail
  • artificial nutrition by a feeding tube if you become unable to eat
• Telling your doctor you have completed a living will or health care proxy and providing them with a copy.

If you suffer from pain and other symptoms because of a serious illness, ask your doctor for a Covenant palliative care referral.