Are you or your loved one confused about the difference between palliative care and hospice care? You aren’t alone. Paradigm Health is the perfect healthcare partner to help each patient determine what their individual goals of care are whether it be hospice or palliative care.
Palliative care is an additional level of resources for you or your loved one. By adding a palliative care team to your overall healthcare and caregiving approach, patients have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Anyone who is seriously ill may benefit from palliative care. Common diagnosis includes patients with stage 3-4 cancer, advanced kidney disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), heart failure, or neurodegenerative disease.
Paradigm Health’s palliative care team is just an extra level of hands, eyes, ears above and beyond what a primary care physician is providing and enhances the quality of life adding value to each day. Palliative care is often a step toward hospice care but not all patients who would benefit from palliative care will progress to hospice care.
Likewise, palliative care is not the same as hospice care. Patients on palliative care are within one to five years of potentially needing hospice care while hospice patients are usually within the last six months of life. Often, palliative care patients are still receiving aggressive curative treatments, whereas patients on hospice care are more focused on daily comfort measures.
Some patients will ultimately transition from palliative care to hospice care. Paradigm Health is the first in the nation to receive accreditation through the Accreditation Commission for Health Care (ACHC) for their palliative care program. Paradigm’s continuum of care offers palliative care services that can allow a patient to transition to hospice care without changing healthcare partners – making the hospice journey less stressful for the caregiving team.
Once admitted to hospice care, patients have met the terminality piece along their healthcare journey. While they may have a limitation on the quantity of life remaining, Paradigm Health can assist in providing an enhanced quality of life with our chaplaincy, bereavement support team and services, music therapy and much more.
Paradigm Health’s interdisciplinary and community approach to caregiving comes right to the patient, no matter where they call home, and brings our services to make the time patients have left that much richer and the quality of life so much more meaningful so that the final journey of life is the best it can be and traveled on each individual patient’s own terms and wishes.
Still not sure if you or a loved one would benefit from palliative care or have questions about what resources would be available? Call us at 317-735-6001.
