St. Tammany Health System’s Palliative Care program has been named a Top 25 finalist in the John A. Hartford Foundation’s 2021 Tipping Point Challenge, a national initiative recognizing innovation in the care of people living with serious illnesses.
The Top 25 announcement, made Monday (July 26), comes after a 10-month competition sponsored by the Center to Advance Palliative Care that was open to all health systems, settings, disciplines, and specialties across the United States. More than 100 organizations participated.
Submissions of innovative initiatives had to align with one of three high-impact categories of change:
- Building Skills Among Nonpalliative Care Specialties and Disciplines: Improving communication skills and/or pain and symptom management skills among all specialists treating CHF, COPD, and cancer
- Improving Systematic Access to Specialty Palliative Care
- Reaching the Patients in Need: Implementing a population health approach to identify and address patients with serious illness and unmet needs, designed to assist people living with a serious illness and unmet needs.
Winners in each area of innovation will be announced Oct. 27.
For decades, St. Tammany Health System’s Palliative Care team has worked tirelessly and compassionately to improve the quality of life for people with serious, life-limiting conditions such as chronic heart failure, dementia, cancer, lung disease and many others.
Unlike hospice care – or end-of-life care – palliative care may be provided alongside hospitalization, surgery, chemotherapy, radiation and other aggressive therapies intended to blunt the impact of the underlying condition. In the process, palliative care providers address the many stressors that can accompany serious illness, such as pain, fatigue, fear of the unknown, loss of independence, or a feeling of being overwhelmed or lost in the medical system.
Learn more at StTammany.health/Palliative.