Palliative Care

At the VNA, Community-Based palliative care has two components: 

First, nurse practitioners oversee the care of patients with advanced illness. The nurse practitioners teach home health nurses how to help patients manage their symptoms and engage patients in discussions about what matters most to them as they face serious illness.  

Then, for patients with complex medical needs, the program extends palliative care into the community, providing palliative care nurses and nurse practitioner house calls to patients whose general health and function has declined as a result of one or more serious illnesses.  These specialists enhance communication with the patients and the primary care provider, and assess and treat the palliative care needs of the patients in the home.  They collaborate with other palliative care specialists in the acute care and clinic settings. 

The goal is to help people understand their options when facing a serious illness and give them the opportunity to receive the type of care they want at home, with the hospital or nursing home as a last option. 

Palliative care focuses on pain relief, stress and other debilitating symptoms of serious illness and may be provided even at the time of diagnosis and while the patient continues to receive curative treatment. The goal of palliative care is to help provide the best possible quality of life for patients and their families while they work to make medical decisions and determine, along with their physician, the best course of treatment that is consistent with their goals and wishes. Palliative care may be provided in the patient's home by VNA of Care New England's home health care program.