Many health care initiatives launched by the Affordable Care Act focus on improving the quality of health care. The Academy and its members have been participating in these efforts, trying to bring wider visibility to the role that palliative care and hospice care can play in improving the quality of health care for patients with serious, advanced illness. Here’s a brief recap of some of the recent activity:
- The Palliative Care and End-of-life Care workgroup of the National Priority Partners, (convened by the National Quality Forum), held an all day workshop on November 2 to come up with priorities to promote the diffusion of palliative care throughout the health care system. Numerous AAHPM members either presented or participated, including Sean Morrison, Sarah Friebert, Javier Kane, Karl Lorenz, Christine Ritchie, and Joan Teno. Diane Meier presented the opening overview, examining the current state of palliative and hospice care services and opportunities to improve access and close performance gaps. The speakers’ slides are posted on the NPP website.
- AAHPM submitted comments to the Secretary of HHS on the National Health Care Quality Strategy and Plan. AAHPM’s public policy advisors see this plan as a critical document that will likely guide how federal energy and resources are spent over the next several years. AAHPM’s comments (which other Hospice and Palliative Care Coalition member organizations also submitted) made two main recommendations:
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- Add focus on patient-centered care guided by palliative care principles to measurement and accountability for all providers serving seriously ill patients.
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- Assure that specialty level palliative care and hospice services are broadly available and of demonstrably high quality.
Specific actions needed to achieve the above goals were also specified.
- AAHPM also submitted comments (as part of the Hospice and Palliative Care Coalition) on the National Quality Forum measure gap agenda. Incredulously, the committee that ranked priorities for measures needed over the next few years ranked palliative care LAST. It received ZERO votes! The Coalition said in its comments: “the Coalition urges the NQF to recognize the urgency of making palliative care measures a high priority on the national measure development agenda.”
AAHPM’s Quality Task Force, chaired by Sydney Dy, would appreciate hearing from you about how we are articulating the need for quality palliative and hospice care. Please leave a comment and let us know whether you think we are succeeding in making the case.