The next step is to identify key players within your organization who are interested in improving the quality of end-of-life care and are willing to explore new options for care delivery. One person can be a visionary and driving force, but successful innovations usually require a team effort. In their review of nine palliative care programs, the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization and the Center for Advancement of Palliative Care note: "At each site visited, committed, well-placed advocates were essential to the project's success. Their experience also suggests that having more than one champion is important because a program's development could be jeopardized if a single key advocate changes jobs or leaves the institution (2001:6)."
At TriCentral, our launch team was comprised of a physician, a nurse manager, and a supportive multidisciplinary team of hospice providers. Using statistical data from our needs assessment, this team presented both a vision and a business plan for adapting an existing hospice program to meet the needs of an underserved population. An internal Kaiser funding source, the Garfield Memorial Fund, concurred with the team's risk/benefit analysis and awarded funding for a one-year pilot test of the new program. The leadership team then reached out to other interested parties to form a network of supportive professionals both within and outside the organization. With this network still in place, the leadership team is able to call upon experts with other skill sets to assist in developing budgets, business plans, grant proposals, and other program components that make the dream of improved end-of-life care a reality.
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For more information about the TriCentral Palliative Care Toolkit visit www.growthhouse.org/palliative/. All content is Copyright © 2002, 2003 by Richard D. Brumley, M.D. All rights reserved. No part of this toolkit may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the publishers. This guide to developing home-based outpatient palliative care services was developed through a grant to the Kaiser Permanente TriCentral Service Area from The Project on Death In America. The Kaiser Permanente TriCentral Palliative Care Program is a Sustaining Member of the Inter-Institutional Collaborating Network On End-of-life Care (IICN) which links major organizations internationally.
