Palliative Care
Expert palliative care at Reid Health focuses on comfort, symptom relief, and emotional and spiritual support for patients with serious illness.
Palliative care at Reid Health
Palliative care is specialized medical care for people with serious or advanced illnesses. Our goal is to reduce symptoms, ease stress, and improve quality of life for both patients and their families.
Palliative care can be offered alongside other treatments at any stage of illness, at any age.
How palliative care helps
Palliative care doesn’t replace your primary treatment. Instead, it works alongside your current medical plan to prevent suffering, manage symptoms, and help patients make informed decisions about care.
Our team supports families in understanding treatment options, navigating difficult decisions, and planning for the future.
Core elements of palliative care
- Advance care planning: Patients can express preferences about pain management, treatments, and quality-of-life decisions.
- Care coordination: Our team works with all your providers to ensure a seamless care plan tailored to your needs.
- Spiritual care: Pastoral care supports patients and families while honoring cultural beliefs and rituals.
- Dignity: We prioritize comfort, respect, and dignity for patients and their families.
- Emotional support: We provide compassionate support for patients and families coping with serious illness.
Conditions that palliative care can support:
Palliative care can help treat patients with conditions like:
- Kidney disease and kidney failure
- Congestive heart failure
- Liver disease
- Huntington’s disease
- Alzheimer’s disease
- Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)
The Reid Health approach to palliative care
Our palliative care team treats the whole person, whether you have medical, emotional, spiritual, or social needs. We provide:
- Family meetings and patient counseling
- Clear communication about care goals and expectations
- Expert management of physical and emotional symptoms
- Coordinating care across providers and settings
- Support from a team including physicians, nurse practitioners, pharmacists, chaplains, social workers, case managers, and hospital staff