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  • © 2014

Meeting the Needs of Older Adults with Serious Illness

Challenges and Opportunities in the Age of Health Care Reform

  • Identifies role of palliative care in improving quality andreducing costs across a range of health care settings and organizations
  • Prioritizes policy changes necessary to standardize access to quality palliative care
  • Connects new delivery and payment incentives under the ACA to opportunities for growth in palliative care services

Part of the book series: Aging Medicine (AGME)

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Table of contents (16 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xiii
  2. Current Needs of Older Adults with Serious Illness

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1
    2. When More Is Less: Overuse of Medical Services Harms Patients

      • Shannon Brownlee, Christine Cassel, Vikas Saini
      Pages 3-18
    3. Disparities in Access to Palliative Care

      • Cardinale B. Smith, Otis W. Brawley
      Pages 19-29
    4. Family Caregiving and Palliative Care: Aligning Theory, Practice, and Policy

      • Carol Levine, Carol V. O’Shaughnessy
      Pages 31-44
  3. Settings for the Care of the Seriously Ill

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 45-45
    2. Hospice and Healthcare Reform: What Is the Optimal Path?

      • Melissa D. Aldridge, Jean S. Kutner
      Pages 59-72
    3. Palliative Care in the Long-Term Care Setting

      • Mary Ersek, Justine S. Sefcik, David G. Stevenson
      Pages 73-90
  4. Measuring Quality and Paying for the Care of the Seriously Ill

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 91-91
    2. Quality and Outcome Measures

      • Laura C. Hanson, Anna P. Schenck, Helen Burstin
      Pages 93-108
    3. Long-term Services and Supports: A Necessary Complement to Palliative Care

      • Judy Feder, Harriet L. Komisar, Robert A. Berenson
      Pages 127-136
    4. The Manifest Destinies of Managed Care and Palliative Care

      • Richard H. Bernstein, Karol K. DiBello
      Pages 137-149
  5. Platforms for Improvement

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 151-151
    2. Models of Care Delivery and Coordination: Palliative Care Integration Within Accountable Care Organizations

      • Dorothy Deremo, Monique Reese, Susan D. Block, Vicki A. Jackson, Thomas H. Lee, Lori Bishop et al.
      Pages 153-176
    3. Implementing a Care Planning System: How to Fix the Most Pervasive Errors in Health Care

      • Bernard J. Hammes, Linda A. Briggs, William Silvester, Kent S. Wilson, Sue Schettle, John R. Maycroft et al.
      Pages 177-189

About this book

Meeting the Needs of Older Adults with Serious Illness: Challenges and Opportunities in the Age of Health Care Reform provides an introduction to the principles of palliative care; describes current models of delivering palliative care across care settings, and examines opportunities in the setting of healthcare policy reform for palliative care to improve outcomes for patients, families and healthcare institutions. The United States is currently facing a crisis in health care marked by unsustainable spending and quality that is poor relative to international benchmarks. Yet this is also a critical time of opportunity. Because of its focus on quality of care, the Affordable Care Act is poised to expand access to palliative care services for the sickest, most vulnerable, and therefore most costly, 5% of patients- a small group who nonetheless drive about 50% of all healthcare spending. Palliative care is specialized medical care for people with serious illnesses. It focuses on providing patients with relief from the symptoms, pain, and stress of a serious illness—whatever the diagnosis or stage of illness. The goal is to improve quality of life for both the patient and the family. Research has demonstrated palliative care’s positive impact on health care value. Patients (and family caregivers) receiving palliative care experience improved quality of life, better symptom management, lower rates of depression and anxiety, and improved survival. Because patient and family needs are met, crises are prevented, thereby directly reducing need for emergency department and hospital use and their associated costs. An epiphenomenon of better quality of care, the lower costs associated with palliative care have been observed in multiple studies.

Meeting the Needs of Older Adults with Serious Illness: Challenges and Opportunities in the Age of Health Care Reform, a roadmap for effective policy and program design, brings together expertclinicians, researchers and policy leaders, who tackle key areas where real-world policy options to improve access to quality palliative care could have a substantial role in improving value.

Reviews

From the book reviews:

“This introduction to palliative care describes current models of delivering palliative care across care settings and explores opportunities in the setting of healthcare policy reform for palliative care to improve outcomes for patients, families, and healthcare institutions. … It is a roadmap for policy and program design, and is therefore a useful resource for policymakers and healthcare administrators. … This is an excellent resource and guidebook for those looking to improve palliative care in the future.” (Darrell A. Owens, Doody’s Book Reviews, September, 2014)

Editors and Affiliations

  • Brookdale Department of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, USA

    Amy S. Kelley, Diane E. Meier

About the editors

Amy S. Kelley, MD MSHS
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Brookdale Department of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine, New York, NY, USA

Diane E. Meier, MD
Director, Center to Advance Palliative Care, Professor and Vice-chair for Public Policy, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Brookdale Department of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine, New York, NY, USA

Bibliographic Information

Buy it now

Buying options

eBook USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access