We continue the palliative care program spotlight series with a truly educational chat with two members of the Flagstaff Medical Center palliative care team in Flagstaff, Arizona. My guests today are Emmalee Kennedy who is the Medical Director of the Flagstaff Medical Center palliative care team as well as Donna Clark, a palliative care nurse and clinical coordinator who has been with the program since its inception over ten years ago. This is a story of tremendous programmatic growth and what that means in terms of obstacles. Emmalee and Donna walk us through their strategies for enhancing team wellness, getting institutional buy-in, keeping up with a growing list of consults and much more.

The palliative care program spotlight series continues with Rab Razzak, Director of Outpatient Palliative Medicine at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Simply put: Rab Razzak (Twitter: @rabrazzak) is championing the future of palliative care. He’s big on staff education and he’s incredibly driven to spread the word of what palliative care can do for patients facing serious illness. He also has a lot to offer us about staff wellness and he’s done tremendous work bringing palliative care to locations around the world who are behind the curve.

In this episode of the Palliative Care Program Spotlight podcast series, we’ll be learning about a program that has just begun. Our guest is Nurse Practioner Tiffani Mckenna of Elmhurst Hospital—a small community hospital in Elmhurst, Illinois. Tiffani manages the palliative care program at Elmhurst. At the time of this recording, the program had only been running for four months . For anyone out there who has built a palliative care program from the ground up, you know it comes with a lot of obstacles and growing pains, but it also might come with some truly incredible moments when the community and the hospital start to realize how vital it is to offer palliative care to patients. For those hoping to start a program, this episode will take you behind the scenes of how to open and grow a program.

In this episode of the palliative care program spotlight series, we speak with Katie Perkins of Sincera Supportive Care and Symptom Relief—a palliative care program owned and operated by Hospice of Northwest Ohio. Katie is a wonderful example of a dedicated and cutting edge program director. She’s been with Hospice of Northwest Ohio for almost 8 years and is in her second year of her Director of Palliative Care position. This is a story of enormous programmatic growth in terms of staff and reach. Among the many topics we cover in this conversation, Katie offers fellow specialists advice for bringing palliative care into the community setting.

In Episode 2 of our Program Spotlight Series, we feature Senior CommUnity Care (SCC). SCC is a rural PACE program (Program for All-inclusive Care for the Elderly) that serves approximately 250 participants in two counties on the Western Slope of Colorado. Their parent organization is Volunteers of America. SCC allows participants to age in place by providing individualized care from an interdisciplinary perspective that encompasses curative, palliative, and end-of-life services as appropriate. SCC began in 2008, the formalized end-of-life program began in 2011, and the formalized palliative program began in early 2015.

In Episode 1 of our Program Spotlight Series, we feature CHI Health Palliative Care in Omaha, Nebraska. CHI currently provides inpatient consults across 5 hospitals with a projected 1300 consults this year and over 3,700 patient encounters. The program is supported within the clinic structure and works closely with the hospital medicine program. With two physicians, one nurse practioner, 3.5 RNs and administration support, the team works alongside pastoral care and social services to provide care across multiple campuses.

Sue Degnan, a retiring palliative care social worker at Huntington Hospital, reflects on her accomplished 52-year career and discusses how her successor is the right person to fill her shoes.