The third season of CAPC's Program Spotlight podcast includes in-depth interviews with palliative care team leaders who discuss various learnings from their programs, such as demonstrating value and making the business case to leadership; managing growing pains; increasing referrals; leadership skills such as hiring, training, and retaining staff; and more.

Palliative Care Program Spotlight, Season 3

Lori Yosick, LISW-S, CHPCA, director of community palliative care at Trinity Health, is one of the country's leading experts in palliative care. In addition to running the program at Trinity, Lori spends her time helping other palliative care programs extend their inpatient services to the outpatient setting. 

In this episode, Lori shares tips for starting, growing, and sustaining an outpatient palliative program. She also discusses how her own missteps in starting an outpatient program taught her the valuable lesson of planning ahead.

Starting and Sustaining an Outpatient Palliative Care Program

In this episode, we are joined by Ira Byock, MD, and Kevin Murphy, MD, MSW, of the Institute for Human Caring of Providence St. Joseph Health. They discuss bringing uniformity to all palliative care programs at their fifty-hospital health system. Additionally, they discuss making the business case for palliative care; the importance of educating all clinicians in palliative care skills; and creating a health system culture that stays true to its core values.

Palliative Care from the Top Down with Dr. Ira Byock

Our guest in this episode is Kristin Edwards, MD, who oversees the palliative care service line at Bridgeport Hospital. Responsible for clinical supervision, hospital staff education, and metrics and measurement, Dr. Edwards shares she builds lasting relationships with referring clinicians. She also discusses how she  attracts the "right" referrals, presents lessons learned in building an outpatient palliative care business plan, and details how to deliver palliative care to the patients who need it most.

Breaking Down Barriers with Referring Clinicians

In this episode, we speak with Dr. Alexander Gamble, MD, medical director of supportive care at Phelps County Regional Medical Center in Rolla, Missouri. Dr. Gamble discusses how he is growing a palliative care team from the ground up, building relationships with referring clinicians, and the challenges of branching out into the rural setting.

Establishing and Growing a Palliative Care Team

In this episode, we are joined by Abi Katz, DO, medical director of Advanced Illness Management at Fidelity Health Care and Premier Health. She shares how her palliative care programs use data to assess their biggest issues, such as: finding the right consults, staffing properly, and demonstrating value to institutional leaders.

Using Data to Find the Right Patients

In this episode, we are joined by Greg Kimura, MD, director of palliative care for Monarch Healthcare in Orange County, California, who discusses caring for patients through the continuum of care, as well as the importance of patient satisfaction and physician training.

The Big 3: Quality of Care, Provider Satisfaction, Cost Effectiveness

In this episode, Parag Bharadwaj, MD, chief of Palliative Care Medicine at Sentara Health in Norfolk, Virginia, discusses challenges in hiring staff, as well as sharing some of recipes for keeping team members engaged for the long term.

Hiring, Training, and Retaining Palliative Care Staff

How do you staff appropriately when your consults are steadily growing? And how do you scale your business model to continue to reach the right patients? 

In this episode, we speak with Teresa Harvey of Transitions Lifecare in Raleigh, NC, whose program jumped from 300 to 800 consults. Teresa discusses her bundled payment model, how she finds and trains the "right" staff, and her desire to expand her program's reach in the community setting.

Navigating Success and Managing Growing Pains

In the episode, we speak with Julie Lehn, PharmD, clinical pharmacy specialist in palliative care at Banner Health in Phoenix, AZ. She discusses how adding a pharmacist to a palliative care team can save an organization money, increase referrals, and reduce readmissions.

Integrating a Pharmacist into the Palliative Care Team

In this episode, Inge DiPasquale, RN, of St. Joseph’s Health in Patterson, NJ, discusses the importance of building relationships when growing a palliative care team. Originally receiving 40 referrals per month, Inge shares her team’s efforts to establish physician buy-in, which ultimately helped grow the program to over 100 referrals in just three years. Additionally, Inge discusses her team’s growth, and the importance of maintaining staff wellness in order to meet patient needs.

Building Relationships to Grow a Palliative Care Program

CAPC’s podcast, Program Spotlight, highlights successes and challenges faced by palliative care programs — across organizations of all sizes and settings. Each episode features an in-depth interview with a palliative care program leader or specialist covering common themes such as managing growth, improving the referral process, team wellness, organizational buy-in, relationship building, and much more.

This podcast is available to listen on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, GooglePlay, iHeartRadio, and Stitcher.