VA Collaborates with Community Hospice Organizations

WASHINGTON — Working with community hospice organizations across the country, the Department of Veterans of Affairs (VA) has begun a two-year project to expand hospice and palliative services in VA as well as educate health care providers about compassionate and coordinated end-of-life care for the nation’s veterans.

Called the VA Hospice and Palliative Care Initiative (VAHPC), the project will enhance and strengthen relationships between VA and non-VA health care organizations and provide opportunities for end-of-life care education.  In support of the project, VA will receive up to $200,000 over the next two years from the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO) and the Center for Advanced Illness Coordinated Care (CAICC).

“Because VA is the largest integrated health care system in the country, we are positioned to be a national leader in end-of-life care,” said Secretary of Veterans Affairs Anthony J. Principi.  “But we can’t provide all the services our aging veterans need.  This initiative is exciting not only because it is aimed at improving care for veterans, but also because it will affect how end-of-life care is provided for all Americans.”

Comprising 40 VA and community experts in hospice and palliative care, VAHPC held its first national meeting last month.  The focus was on creating an overall strategy for the project, as well as identifying goals and objectives for each of the five workgroups: finance, education and training, research and evaluation, policy and regulation and community outreach.

“This initiative will help change the focus of health care providers who are treating the terminally ill,” said Dr. Stephanie H. Pincus, VA chief officer for Academic Affiliations and VAHPC co-chair.  “It underscores our belief that education and care go hand-in-hand, it supports ongoing collaboration within VA and it expands these efforts into the community.”

Dr. Thomas Holohan, chief officer for Patient Care Services, said, “This project is about honoring veterans’ preferences for care at the end of life.  We want to ensure that veterans receive care in the setting that best supports their needs and those of their loved ones.”

This is not VA’s first national program in the area of end-of-life care.  In 1998, VA launched the two-year VA Faculty Leaders Project for Improved Care at the End of Life, funded in part by a generous grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.  

The Faculty Leaders Project was followed by a one-year Training and Program Assessment for Palliative Care (TAPC) Project.   TAPC resulted in, among other things, the creation of an interprofessional fellowship program to train physicians, nurses, and other associated health care professionals in hospice and palliative care.  The fellowship program is being offered at six sites, with four one-year fellowships at each site.

“Like VA, the nation’s hospices want veterans to have more choices regarding where and how they spend the final phase of their lives,” said Chris Cody, NHPCO vice president of education and innovation.  “Access and education are the keys.  By increasing veterans’ access to quality hospice and palliative care services across all settings and expanding the knowledge and skills of the clinicians providing care, veterans will benefit from an enhanced range of end-of-life care options.”

Secretary Principi echoed the sentiment.  “There comes a time when all the modern medicine in the world can’t cure the illness.  Treating the pain, communicating with compassion and providing support and counseling are paramount. And that’s what VA is all about.”

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