Welcome to the AAP Section on Hospice and Palliative Medicine (SOHPM) Web site! The site is under development with new information and resources being added on a regular basis. We invite you to look around and let us know about any additional resources or information that you would like to see.
What is Palliative Care?
Pediatric palliative care is care designed to meet the unique and special needs of children living with life-threatening conditions such as cancer, muscular dystrophy, cystic fibrosis, severe brain problems, complications from prematurity and birth defects and rare disorders, among other conditions. Unlike many other forms of medical care, pediatric palliative care recognizes that everyone in the family is affected when one member is ill. Therefore, pediatric palliative care focuses on the needs of the patient and family: parents, brothers and sisters and other members of the members of your suppport system. The focus of pediatric palliative care is to enhance the quality of life for all involved, in large part by preventing and alleviating suffering using the skills and knowledge of a specialized care team that includes doctors, nurses, social workers, chaplains, child life therapists, and others. Pediatric palliative care focuses on pain and symptom management, information sharing and advance care planning, practical, psychosocial and spiritual support, and coordination of care.
From The Chair
April 2013
“Show me your palliative care business plan.”
“What does your business model look like?”
Has anyone ever asked you such questions? What was your response? Why can it sound so foreign to clinicians?
The idea that palliative care clinicians are generally versed in business models, understand financial spreadsheets, and can present a 10-minute executive brief that will win favor amid competing hospital, academic and operational priorities has always struck me as odd. Most of us come from critical care, oncology or other subspecialty backgrounds. Most of us do not hold MBA’s. We haven’t run private practices. We may have never prepared a budget for a large grant. Yet, I have experienced, and continue to hear from others, the challenge from hospital leadership that seems to become an impediment to the growth and development of mature and sustainable pediatric palliative care services. So what are we to do?
The information posted on this Web site is selected for its value and relation to palliative care and does not represent an endorsement or an official opinion or position of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
