Serious Illness & End-of-Life Care

March 1, 2020

Palliative Care Movement Achieves Significant Progress in California

Claudia Boyd-Barrett

Serious Illness & End-of-Life Care

The growing availability of palliative care for patients with serious illnesses is preventing hospitalizations, improving outcomes, and providing significant relief.

California’s Palliative Care Evolution: Celebrating Progress and Shaping the Future

Serious Illness & End-of-Life Care

This resource from Transforming Care Partners describes the key drivers of California's progress in palliative care and remaining opportunities to build on and accelerate this growth to meet future needs.

Alliance with Black Churches Closes Care Gaps for Aging People

August 25, 2023

Heather Stringer

Older Adults with Complex Needs, Serious Illness & End-of-Life Care, Health Equity

Trusted navigators help caregivers obtain holistic care and support for seniors with serious illnesses.

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.