By Nancy Frazier O’Brien
Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) — Palliative care that focuses on pain management and attention to the psychological, social and spiritual needs of suffering and dying patients must be part of the nation’s health care reform, the new chairwoman of the Catholic Health Association’s board of trustees said at a Capitol Hill briefing.

Colleen Scanlon, an attorney who previously worked as a palliative care nurse, said such care can be “a model to improve quality and manage scarce resources” as policymakers debate health care reform.

“By reducing pain and suffering and coordinating care transitions, palliative care reduces emergency room visits, hospital stays and readmissions, and most importantly improves patient and family satisfaction,” said Scanlon, senior vice president for advocacy at Catholic Health Initiatives in Denver.

At the June 15 briefing, she represented both CHA and the Supportive Care Coalition: Pursuing Excellence in Palliative Care, a coalition of 19 Catholic health systems.

Scanlon said research shows that in many cases people hospitalized with life-threatening illness “receive expensive, aggressive medical intervention that is often unwanted and that diminishes their quality of life.”

Given that the estimated 90 million Americans now living with serious and life-threatening illnesses is expected to double over the next 25 years, “we must find a better way to care for the seriously ill and dying,” Scanlon said.

“We have a moral obligation to ensure that the seriously ill receive care that respects their wishes, that protects their dignity and that meets the needs of the whole person — body, mind and spirit,” she added.

Palliative care “is highly coordinated, interdisciplinary, patient- and family-centered care that optimizes quality of life by anticipating, preventing and treating symptoms, as well as facilitating patient autonomy, access to information and treatment choice,” Scanlon said.

In addition, she said, it is “provided concurrently with disease-modifying treatment and continues as end-of-life care and hospice care after such treatment is no longer effective, appropriate or desired.”

“Palliative care must be integrated into health reform legislation and should be addressed in quality measures, payment reform, comparative effectiveness, health IT (information technology), demonstration programs and workforce issues,” Scanlon said.

The briefing was sponsored by CHA, the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network and two Democratic House members — Reps. Steve Israel of New York and Lois Capps of California.

Capps is chief sponsor of the National Pain Care Policy Act of 2009, H.R. 756, which would educate doctors and other health care professionals about how to best diagnose and treat pain safely; raise awareness among patients and their families about the need to seek proper pain management; and improve coordination of pain research at the National Institutes of Health.

The legislation passed the House by voice vote March 30 and, as S. 660, is now before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.

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