Serious Illness & End-of-Life Care - California Health Care Foundation

Serious Illness & End-of-Life Care
As serious illness progresses, too many people receive ineffective, unwanted, and expensive medical treatments while their physical, spiritual, and emotional needs are poorly addressed. CHCF invests in projects that promote palliative care, which focuses on improving quality of life and relieving suffering at all stages of serious illness, and communicating patient preferences across care settings.

Evaluating Fiscal Outcomes for Outpatient Palliative Care

J. Brian Cassel, Kathleen Kerr

Serious Illness & End-of-Life Care

The materials provided here offer guidance on how to conduct analyses that quantify economic outcomes for established outpatient palliative care clinics and how to estimate the impact of proposed clinics. The audiences for these materials are palliative care program leaders and the health system analysts who will be conducting analyses.

Evaluating Fiscal Outcomes for Inpatient Palliative Care

J. Brian Cassel, Kathleen Kerr

Serious Illness & End-of-Life Care

The materials provided here describe how inpatient palliative care services impacts hospital costs and offer guidance on how to conduct analyses that quantify economic outcomes. The audiences for these materials are palliative care program leaders and the health system analysts who will be conducting analyses.

Making the Case for Inpatient Palliative Care

J. Brian Cassel, Kathleen Kerr

Serious Illness & End-of-Life Care

Leaders of public hospital inpatient palliative care services (IPPCs) often need to make the case to health system clinical and administrative leaders to secure resources needed to sustain, improve, or expand the palliative care service. The materials provided here review useful tactics and tools for making the case and keeping IPPC on the radar of leaders who make resource allocation decisions.

Resources to Support Palliative Care in Public Hospitals

Serious Illness & End-of-Life Care

This collection includes information and tools to help leaders of palliative care programs at public health care systems to sustain and expand inpatient and outpatient services that meet the needs of people with serious illnesses.

Making the Case for Outpatient Palliative Care

J. Brian Cassel, Kathleen Kerr

Serious Illness & End-of-Life Care

Leaders of public hospital outpatient palliative care (OPPC) services often need to make the case to health system clinical and administrative leaders to secure resources needed to sustain, improve, or expand the palliative care service. The materials provided here review useful tactics and tools for making the case and for keeping OPPC on the radar of leaders who make resource allocation decisions.

Standardizing Home-Based Palliative Care: Necessary, Doable, and Fruitful

J. Brian Cassel, Kathleen Kerr, Kate Meyers, Judy Thomas

Serious Illness & End-of-Life Care

How palliative care clinicians and payers in California worked together to reduce unwanted variation and confusion in home-based palliative care.

Essential Skills and Supports for All Clinicians Treating Serious Illness

Serious Illness & End-of-Life Care

All people with serious illness should have access to palliative care, beginning early in their illness and delivered in conjunction with disease-oriented treatments. To successfully address these needs, all clinicians who treat people with serious illness should have the knowledge and skills to provide first-line palliative care, including basic management of pain and symptoms and discussions about prognosis and goals of care.

Essential Elements of Medi-Cal Palliative Care Services

Serious Illness & End-of-Life Care

This set of tips and tools for Medi-Cal managed care plans and palliative care providers reflects the expertise and approaches of plan-provider partners around the state, and can be used to strengthen these organizations’ collaborative approach to caring for people with serious illnesses.

2020 Edition — Long-Term and End-of-Life Care in California

Serious Illness & End-of-Life Care

This Almanac report describes the state’s supply and use of long-term care services, Medicare and Medi-Cal spending on services, and quality of care.

Home on the Range: Plans and Providers Team Up to Bring Palliative Care to Rural Californians

Kathleen Kerr, Monique Parrish, Lyn Ceronsky

Serious Illness & End-of-Life Care

As the demand for palliative care has expanded into California’s immense and disparate rural areas, health plans and providers have faced unique challenges. This report describes key lessons from the CHCF rural palliative care initiative, which are intended to help health plans and providers understand the challenges and consider possible solutions to support delivery of palliative care in rural areas.

California Mobilizes for a Health Care Surge

Xenia Shih Bion

Coverage Trends, Medi-Cal, Serious Illness & End-of-Life Care, Telehealth, Workforce

Stories That Caught Our Attention: California is adopting policies related to health care coverage, workforce, telehealth, and palliative care to prepare for the COVID-19 pandemic.

COVID-19 Resources: Serious Illness and End-of-Life Care

Serious Illness & End-of-Life Care

These resources are for health care providers and leaders concerned about serious illness and end-of-life care in this new era of COVID-19. We're updating this page regularly.

Finding the Right Words About COVID-19

Serious Illness & End-of-Life Care

Health care professionals are facing conversations that they never expected — or wanted — to have.

The Role of Palliative Care in a COVID-19 Pandemic

Jennifer Moore Ballentine

Serious Illness & End-of-Life Care, Workforce

Applying the unique skills and strengths found in palliative care must be part of the response to the novel coronavirus.

You’ve Got to Hear This: Funding a New Health Policy Podcast

January 16, 2020

Steven Birenbaum, Jordan Reese

Serious Illness & End-of-Life Care, Maternal Health

If it seems like everyone you know is recommending that you listen to their favorite podcast, you’re not alone.