Allison Silvers Identifies 3 Key Components to Ensuring Palliative Care Access

In order to make palliative care accessible in every community, the Center to Advance Palliative Care works to educate clinicians, raise awareness among patients, and maintain adequate funding, according to Allison Silvers, vice president of payment and policy at the Center to Advance Palliative Care.

Transcript (slightly modified)

How does Center to Advance Palliative Care work at the community level to advance the growth of palliative care utilization?

We have multiple strategies. Our mission is to increase access to palliative care, and one part of that is educating all clinicians. At the community level, if you go to any doctor, any nurse, and they have basic skills and they know what palliative care is, and they know what palliative care is not, I think that’s another piece to this puzzle. That improves access at the community level, that you can walk in and get someone who knows what they’re talking about, and ideally has some basic skills as well.

The second part to increasing access is directed to consumers, so educating consumers to demand palliative care. We’re doing a number of things in that area, probably one of the best things we have is getpalliativecare.org, and it explains what patients can do, what families can do. We have a directory of services, so I think that’s the second leg of the stool.

And then the third leg of the stool, I do want to reiterate the idea about funding, that access needs funding. If the resources aren’t put into palliative care, then communities won’t be able to access palliative care. All 3 coming together really ensures access for every seriously ill person in the United States.