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Updated February 17, 2005
Balm of Gilead Center at Cooper Green Hospital in Birmingham, AL, is aptly named after the healing balm of biblical stories. This comprehensive palliative care program includes a homey, 10-bed inpatient facility for dying patients who have no one to care for them at home. The Center also expands the Jefferson County Health Department's home-based hospice program, enabling indigent patients to receive inpatient or home-based care as needed, regardless of their ability to pay.
Former Cooper Green Medical Center Director, F. Amos Bailey, MD, notes that in addition to creating the inpatient care facility and expanding home-based hospice care, the Balm of Gilead Center is "developing the systems, services and institutional and community values that truly provide excellence in end-of-life care for a medically underserved population and their families." Under this project, comprehensive, team-based end-of-life care - also known as palliative care - is integrated into the hospital's acute care system.
The project utilizes a team approach that includes doctors, nurses, church groups and volunteers. Church groups and other community organizations receive training in providing supportive care to terminally ill patients and their families. This project has instituted a thorough training program for palliative care staff, volunteer teams and doctors in training at Cooper Green Hospital. This collaborative effort among Jefferson County's public hospital, Cooper Green Hospital, and the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine is also developing a new curriculum on end-of-life medicine. Medical students attending the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine are introduced to palliative care through a curriculum that teaches students to focus on comfort, issues of life completion and closure, and quality of life for dying patients and their families.
Promoting Excellence in End-of-Life Care is a national program of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation dedicated to long-term changes in health care institutions to substantially improve care for dying people and their families. Visit PromotingExcellence.org for more resources.
