Vim & Vigor - Winter 2019 - CH - 7

The Purpose
of Palliative Care

Community Hospital in Munster,
St. Catherine Hospital in East Chicago
and St. Mary Medical Center in Hobart
provide palliative care for patients who
are chronically ill and are in need of
inpatient and outpatient support to
enable them to have the best quality
of life possible.
Palliative care can begin at diagnosis and continue throughout treatment.
Hospice care, in contrast, begins after
treatment is stopped and the goal is no
longer to cure, but to provide comfort
and the best quality of life possible.
"We see patients with chronic conditions such as CHF, COPD, cancer,
dementia, stroke and conditions that
cause them to continue to be readmitted
to the hospital," says nurse practitioner
Amanda LeVin of Community Hospital.
"Then we get involved through physician or staff referral and make a different plan for continuum of care that
hasn't been made before."
That involves palliative care team
members consulting with the patient
and family members about the goals
of care or what direction that care will
take, LeVin says.
"Palliative care is about planning for
the future: educating them about their
disease process, painting a picture of
what they can expect, worst-case scenario options, potential resources."

Empowering Patients
and Families

Negrete died in May; his widow, Vicki,
says palliative care helped her family by
offering a better understanding of what
her husband was going through and educating them on what to expect during
the next steps in his treatment.
"We finally had some direction in putting Fred's care back into our hands,
because up until that point we did not
know what was going on," Vicki Negrete
says. "As much as I had been at Fred's
side all along, this was the first time

I was hearing about how we could help
with the decision-making in his care.
Amanda (LeVin) gave us her number
and said I could text her and she would
come to see me when I was at the hospital and answer my questions and fill
me in on what was happening next.
She got all of us on the same page. She
was our angel when it came to keeping
us informed as to what had happened,
and what was new since the last time I
was there. They made our lives easier
instead of demanding to know what
we wanted to do while we were in a
panic mode."

Continuing
Conversations

Just as at Community Hospital,
St. Catherine Hospital and
St. Mary Medical Center have a large
population of patients with CHF and
COPD, people who are chronically ill
and go back and forth to the hospital
for treatment sometimes a couple of
times a month.
"These patients get to a point when
their care needs start to flip; when it
becomes not what the doctor orders,
because it is still not enough, but what
they need to maintain a certain level

Part of Vicki Negrete's (seated,
center) husband Fred's palliative
care team at Community Hospital
included (left to right) nurse Susan
Kelley, social worker Nicole Brundage
Lamski and nurse practitioner
Amanda LeVin.

of quality of life," says Donna SolisTraicoff, nurse transitional specialist
at St. Catherine Hospital.
"Many patients, like Fred, want to
get to the next step in medicine," she
says. "A decision has to be made at
some point (about treatment). These
conversations are not one and done.
These conversations occur over and
over for the extent of the patient's lifetime to determine their wishes and the
best course of care for them. Whatever
their need, we work with their doctors to see that they are taken care of,
from bringing in their family members
to symptom management. As my job
duties include working in readmissions, we are able to offer help in so
many areas. We can arrange for help at
home, pharmacy needs, transportation,
set up outpatient visits and talk with
the family."
WINTE R 2019

Vim & Vigor - Winter 2019 - CH

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