30/30/30 Campaign to Improve Late-Life Care

A Palliative Care Summit was recently convened in Philadelphia by the School of Population Health at Thomas Jefferson University. It was described as the “First National” and the “Leading Forum on Palliative and End-of-Life Care”.


An impressive array of speakers over the two days. Diane Meier,MD, Sean Morrison, MD, Don Schumacher, David Wennberg, MD, Christine Richie, MD, Terri Maxwell, PhD,APRN, James Cleary, MD.,Todd Hultman,PhD,APRN to name but a few. A roster of thought leaders in the field. Compelling cases were made during the presentations on why hospice and palliative care (is/are?) the solution to many of the health care industry’s woes. Meanwhile, just next door, other industry thought leaders were offering compelling cases on why “medical homes” or ‘expanded chronic care models” or “mobile technology” were desirable solutions for transformation of the health care system.

In other words, competing, or one might say, conflicting visions. These competing/conflicting visions exist across specialties, and within them. Dr. Morrison addressed this issue when he stated that the public and professionals are confused by references to hospice and palliative care , as if these were two distinct fields or sectors.

While my training is as a health executive, I’ve spent much of my professional career advancing the work of palliative care/hospice professionals and organizations. So I pay closer attention to the hospice/palliative care field, and how it may best fit into the larger health care system. And as Dr. Morrison stated directly, and others commented more indirectly, while progress has been made over the past 15 years, the institutional culture of dying in the US has not dramatically changed. I refer to palliative care as one parts accomplishment for every three parts of potential. Yes, we have a long way to go, indeed.

At the end of the Summit, I was left with a nagging question: If hospice and palliative care are such an obvious solution, then why hasn’t the “art” and “science” of hospice and palliative care spread more quickly and widely than it has? No simple answers to be sure. Yes, many of the speakers offered calls (some powerful) to action. Yet calls for action have been sounded for the past 15 years, with some, but most would argue, insufficient progress. Why? The promise of palliative care to improve late-life care has been stymied by a highly fragmented field of hospice and palliative care where stakeholders are perpetually “staking” out their ground.

Some suggestions for the Second National Palliative Care Summit. Let’s have discussions around:

• How nursing AND medicine can best collaborate to improve access to palliative care in all settings across the community.

• What NEW organizational models might best bring together key stakeholders in late-life care within a community?

• What can be learned from communities whose late-life care practices make them exemplars?

Finally, we need a unifying campaign to improve late-life care in the US. Here’s a suggestion. The 30/30/30 Campaign. A national campaign carried out locally/regionally.

Something like the following:

• No more than 30% of deaths occur in hospitals.
• At least 30% of deaths in hospital are consulted by palliative care specialists.
• No more than 30% of patients who die will be enrolled in hospice for 10 days or less.

Your comments, ideas, feedback are, as usual, invited.

Gentiva-Odyssey - Who Will Be the Beneficiaries?

I've suggested in the past that the hospice industry is sub-scale (too many small providers) so I've been asked recently if the news about the Gentiva acquisition of Odyssey marks the beginning of a consolidation that will benefit the delivery of hospice services in the US.

The recent business transaction between Gentiva and Odyssey is a blockbuster deal (or as some analysts put it, a game-changer) not only because of the dollars involved (a billion of them) but also because it involves the combination of a for-profit home health provider with a for-profit hospice.

Several points struck me:

-Gentiva will be under great pressure to make this deal work because it expects to raise $1.1 billion in NEW DEBT financing to fund the purchase price and refinance existing debt. Such financial pressure encourages management decision-making where patient enrollment trumps patient service.
-Identifying synergies (not to be confused with economies of scale) between home health and hospice has been elusive. It's probably why there haven't been such large-scale combinations to date, and why even small-scale home health/hospice collaborations (either for-profit or not-for-profit) have been few and far between. That said, Gentiva's management has had a solid track record and may be up to the task of capitalizing on these elusive synergies.
-Health care (especially home and hospice care) is local, and after the transaction is completed, the key question will be: can a home health-hospice behemoth better advance (than other organizational delivery models) the provision of palliative care to those with chronic or advanced illness? To the extent that the new Gentiva/Odyssey entity may be able to develop accountable palliative care organizations (APCOs) within the communities it serves, then it may be worth the effort.

I'm curious to learn your thoughts.

Palliative Care Grand Rounds - April MMX

A grand welcome to the April edition of Palliative Care Grand Rounds (PCGR), a monthly (first Wednesday) summary, or mash-up, of thought-provoking, timely, relevant, humane, and exceptionally well-written postings from the blogosphere. For a look back at year-to-date PCGRs, see here, here, and here. Now, onward.

With the landmark health reform bill commanding news throughout the past month, I’ll focus on blog posts relating to palliative care that any of us might have overlooked. First, a summary of how health reform may impact hospice via Larry Beresford’s post .

A higher than usual volume of current blog postings concern futile care. To wit, the Happy Hospitalist writes in his Unfiltered Hospital Medicine Blog about a recent case that highlights for him, just as for many who posted comments, the ethical issues surrounding futile care. So is this particular case an extreme example? Or is it more common than you or I realize? Decide for yourself.

Meanwhile, a neurologist with the blogger moniker of Dr. Grumpy writes about another example of futile care that’s sure to give pause to each reader.

Then there’s Joanne Kenen, a veteran journalist who logged more than a decade covering health policy on Capitol Hill. As Senior Writer in the Health Policy Program at the New America Foundation, Ms. Kenen’s blog focuses on the intersection between health policy and health politics. Read here for her reaction to an essay “Shock Me, Tube Me, Line Me” penned by an
Emergency Medicine specialist in the esteemed journal Health Affairs. Its author, Boris Veysman, an ER doc at a New Jersey academic medical center, describes caring for a terminally ill woman suffering from metastatic cancer. Her wish—to have a low-tech death, free of tubes and machines—both countered and confirmed his to have “everything” done to prolong life when his time comes. A provocative read.

Larry Beresford, host of last month’s PCGR, posted recently about the discussion circulating more widely these days on declining enrollment at hospices. A decline in hospice referrals, Larry posits, may correlate to what the economists refer to as a necessary market correction.

The critical nexus of death and religion often fascinates Ann Neumann. In her blog Otherspoon, she weighs in with a thoughtful piece on the role that three institutions (church, state, and health care industry) play in the national structure of late-life care.
Concurrently, her post grapples with the racial disparities prevalent in hospice enrollment.

I’m indebted to Christian Sinclair for facilitating my role as Grand Rounds host in his post . It nicely crystallizes several blog posts that have deservedly garnered much attention and discussion.

Dr. Michael Kirsch asks in his blog “Are Feeding Tubes Futile Care or Morally Obligatory?” See where you stand.

A family medicine physician who writes a blog, Musings of a Dinosaur, posted last month that “Palliative Care is an Unnecessary Specialty”. Well, as you’d expect, this view generated considerable discussion throughout the blogosphere. Some came from Buckeye Surgeon, who comments occasionally about palliative care, posting these comments.

On Geripal, Alex Smith writes about how his “What is palliative care?” response has evolved. Today, he starts by saying, "Palliative care is about matching treatment to patient goals." Hard to argue with that.

Are you curious how physicians choose to practice in hospice and palliative medicine? In the first edition of Pallimed’s new feature, Origins, Pam Harris, who recently passed her Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation boards and is HPM-certified, details what drew her to the HPM specialty.

Suzana Makowski joined Pallimed last month as a blogger, posting about emergency room use by patients with cancer approaching end of life. Dr. Makowski adds her suggestions to those of the study’s author on how ER visits could be reduced. One notion: establishing “palliative care medical homes” that provide palliative care seamlessly across healthcare settings.


Risa’s Pieces has been a blog whose posts have been regularly featured in PCGR. In this post,
Risa writes about her new roles in and out of end-of-life care.

Over at the blog Death Club for Cuties, look for a new feature titled Memorial Monday.
Blogger Jerry Soucy visits a site called Find a Grave, searches through its database to find the people who died on the particular date of a given Monday, and then selects an entry that has some relevance to palliative care, or that otherwise resonates with him personally.

Next month’s host is Thaddeus Pope, at his blog http://medicalfutility.blogspot.com/. Lots of March posts on the subject of yes, medical futility. Among these posts you'll find many video links, one of them of a short film nominated for Best Animated Short Film at the 2010 Academy Awards. I think you'll find it worth eight minutes of your time. And while on the subject of the connection between the arts and death and dying, have a look at Pallimed's Arts and Humanities blog and postings by Drs. Christian, Clarkson, and Wollesen.


Of course, your comments are, as usual, invited.

Can Hospice and Palliative Care Escape the R Word?

The question Why are Referrals to Hospice Slowing? seems to be making the rounds these days.
Misconceptions about hospice and palliative care have abounded well before the latest efforts to refrom the health care system. How else to explain the persistent and continuing reticence to refer to, and accept hospice services, in most US communities. What's different today is that the skeptics of hospice and palliative medicine are more vitriolic than their predecessors, and their talking points (arguments) are more vivid - "death panels, socialized medicine".
I served as the chief executive of a hospice affiliated with a highly-regarded academic health center in the 90s, and the reasons then were abundant for the low referral rate to hospice: patients were referred to academic health centers because they wanted to avail themselves of the most sophisticated medical care for cure; the attending physicians were providing palliative care; the patients' religious/cultural beliefs made them unready for hospice, etc. We've all heard them before, and we still hear these reasons now.
It's just that now, in the context of health reform, palliative care, for some, is considered 'rationing."
And it gains credence because there is so much money in late-life care.