The fifth season of CAPC's Program Spotlight podcast begins with the topic of starting and growing an outpatient palliative care program. Stay tuned for additional conversations with palliative care specialists from around the country.

Palliative Care Program Spotlight, Season 5

In this episode, we hear from Drs. Robert Friedman and Kate Tindall of Austin Palliative Care in Texas about their journey in establishing a home-based palliative care program. They discuss the challenges of designing their program, and how they used years of strategic research to identify their patient population, understand the unique needs in their city, and ultimately drive referrals. They share insights on balancing growth with delivering high-quality care, and how palliative care can be a model for value-based care – with the potential to improve quality of care and reduce costs.

How Research Informed a Home-Based Palliative Care Program from the Start

In this episode, we hear from Dr. Patricia Fogelman, DNP, about being brought in to lead the palliative care program at Guthrie Clinic, a rural integrated health system located in north central Pennsylvania and upstate New York, serving 12 counties. We learn about the many ways she’s proving the value of palliative care by engaging within and outside of her institution, creatively finding solutions to showcase what high-quality palliative care looks like, while overcoming limited resources. We also learn how the pandemic positioned her to accelerate her team's visibility, which allowed her to assume an institutional leadership role.

Expanding Access to Palliative Care within a Rural Health System

Dr. Diana Martins-Welch, palliative care physician at Northwell Health Long Island, discusses how she built the outpatient palliative care practice as part of her organization's cancer institute. She shares observations about growing from a sole provider to a small team, achieving earlier referrals from her oncology colleagues, and expanding the team’s visibility to support more patients.

Teachable Moments: Proving the Value of Palliative Care

Dr. Chin-Lin Ching, medical director of palliative care at Highland Hospital, joins her mentor, Dr. Diane E. Meier, director of the Center to Advance Palliative Care for an interview.

In this episode, Dr. Ching shares how she turned around her program, which was considered successful on paper (based on high and rising volume), but unsustainable due to strains on staffing — causing her team to feel overwhelmed and burnt out. Instead of walking away, Dr. Ching took steps to overcome her feelings of despair, which included research, planning, and implementing change.

For more information, visit: https://www.capc.org/blog/how-program-leader-climbed-despair-success

A Program Leader's Journey from Despair to Success

Dr. Jessica Israel, senior vice president of geriatrics and palliative care at RWJ Barnabus Health in New Jersey, shares how she built a palliative care service line across the largest academic health care system in the state. She discusses how her communication skills expertise (from palliative care training) set the stage to achieve systemwide collaboration, and how she purposefully sought to unify, improve, and streamline the teams and processes, while allowing each site to retain its own personality and structure.

Building a Systemwide Palliative Care Collaborative

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.