Fairview’s Palliative Care Leadership Center

In 2003, Fairview Health Services was designated one of six national Palliative Care Leadership Centers (PCLCs) by the Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. These premier programs host site visits, including training and technical assistance for hospitals and other institutions seeking to start or strengthen their own palliative care programs. The Palliative Care Leadership Centers are located at:

Fairview Health Services
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Massey Cancer Center of Virginia Commonwealth University Health System
Richmond, Virginia
Medical College of Wisconsin
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Mount Carmel Health System
Columbus, Ohio
Palliative Care Center of the Bluegrass
Lexington, Kentucky
University of California, San Francisco
San Francisco, California

Who Sponsors the PCLCs

Increasing numbers of hospitals are starting palliative care programs to improve the quality of care for seriously ill patients. To support this trend, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation funded the $4.5 million PCLC initiative. The PCLCs are led by the Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC) at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York, a national initiative of the Foundation that helps hospitals and other health care settings to develop palliative care programs. In 2006, the JEHT Foundation committed funding for an additional three years for the PCLCs.

How PCLCs Help Palliative Care Proponents

Palliative care leaders want to meet and talk with peers who have built successful programs. The best way to learn about building a palliative care program is to visit a leading program in practice. As quality programs with strong track records, the PCLC sites help clinicians and managers draw on this unique expertise and put proven palliative care tools and training into successful practice. Programs at the planning stage can more easily and efficiently launch palliative care services, and existing programs can find effective ways to improve and grow their operations.

Who Should Visit

Institutions that are planning a hospital-based palliative care program or have already begun a program will benefit from the PCLC initiative. Teams of four, including physicians, nurses, administrators and other staff involved in palliative care, should attend. Although all six PCLCs welcome site visitors from all hospital and hospice settings, Fairview is most appropriate for academic and community hospitals, hospices, and hospitals affiliated with a health system.

Components of the PCLC Initiative

Site visits – Participants interact with the program staff and receive training through an in-depth curriculum offered in a small-group, hands-on setting.
Curriculum – The curriculum includes materials and tools focusing on:

Assessing hospital needs
Determining the clinical care model and staffing
Making the financial case
Measuring clinical and financial outcomes
Developing strategies for ensuring and managing growth
Forming hospice/hospital partnerships
Marketing palliative care to clinicians and to patients

Mentoring – Following the site visit, participants will receive a year of direct mentoring to apply the tools and training, in addition to other technical assistance. Mentoring may include conferences, workshops, conference calls and personal communication with Fairview’s leaders, depending on the needs of the learning organization.

Fairview’s Palliative Care Program

The program operates a consult team at the University of Minnesota Medical Center that includes the University of Minnesota Children’s Hospital, Fairview. The team has an advanced practice nurse, physician, social worker and chaplain, all employed by the hospital.

The University of Minnesota Medical Center team sees adult and pediatric patients on two campuses, one with a full spectrum of teaching services, and one with primarily family practice house-staff. This team sees patients with diagnoses ranging from oncology, bone marrow and solid organ transplants to general medical conditions.

There are also programs in Fairview’s community hospitals located throughout Minnesota. Fairview Ridges Hospital’s program is led by an advanced practice nurse who links with the patient’s physician and the unit social worker and chaplain to develop the palliative care plan. Fairview Red Wing’s program, based in the ambulatory oncology center, includes a nurse practitioner who sees patients in inpatient and outpatient areas.

In addition to the consult teams, numerous other initiatives support the integration of palliative care throughout the Fairview system and at the smaller hospitals without the resources or volume to support dedicated staff.

What Can be Gained from a Fairview Site Visit

In addition to the standard PCLC curriculum elements, Fairview offers site visitors:

In-depth understanding of the consult team care model including staffing, roles, training, management and integration within the existing hospital departmental organizational structure.
Strategies for delivering palliative care in hospitals that do not have sufficient critical mass for dedicated staff and/or a dedicated palliative care inpatient unit of at least 8-10 beds
Hands-on experience with the cost avoidance model, which documents the financial impact of palliative care from the broader hospital perspective
Access to core competencies, including a detailed toolkit for conducting family conferences
Introduction to specialized programs that support palliative care, including a bereavement program and a perinatal loss program
Educational programming to conduct palliative care educational conferences for health care providers.

Site Visit Application

Log onto the Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC) web site at http://www.capc.org/ for information on how to register for PCLC site visit to Fairview and for comprehensive information on starting a palliative care program.

PCLC Key Staff Members

Lyn Ceronsky, A.P.R.N., M.S.
System Director, TLC
Co-Principal Investigator, Palliative Care Leadership Center
Gordon-Kolb, M.D., C.P.E
Medical Director, Palliative Care
Co-Principal Investigator, Palliative Care Leadership Center
Julie Robbins, BA
Administrative Assistant