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Palliative Care Evaluation ReportIn early June, The Colorado Trust released the evaluation report summary of its Palliative Care Initiative. Palliative care is compassionate, comprehensive care for people with progressive, chronic, life-threatening or terminal medical conditions. The three-year, $3.7 million initiative was designed to stimulate the development of comprehensive palliative care networks across Colorado. These networks joined together palliative care service providers to address the complex and changing medical, social and spiritual needs of patients and their families. Participants included hospitals, hospices, nursing homes, mental health centers, faith communities and other cultural and civic organizations. An independent evaluation of the initiative was conducted by the National Research Center. The evaluation sought to determine which factors led to more positive experiences for palliative care patients and their families, if the networks of providers improved end-of-life care and whether strong networks resulted in better outcomes. Evaluation findings show that good palliative care services can be provided in a variety of settings. While this initiative was structured to provide services via networks - and the evaluation of this initiative found that palliative care networks can be considered a promising approach for improving end-of-life care - collaboratives are by no means necessary to the provision of high quality palliative care. The evaluation also showed that patients and their families were generally satisfied with the care provided. Networks met the needs of the vast majority of patients and caregivers involved in this effort, providing better end-of-life care than what is generally observed in the U.S. At the same time, patient and caregiver ratings of quality of care did not significantly improve over the three-year course of the initiative - perhaps because, even with its inadequacies, Colorado provides better end-of-life care than most states. Click here for the Palliative Care Initiative Evaluation Report Summary. |
