Partnering for Palliative Care: Improving Quality of Life in Rural Communities

Project: Partnering for Palliative Care

Partnering for Palliative Care is an interdisciplinary team of a behavioral health specialist, nurse paramedic, nurse practitioner, palliative nurse, and physician in Okanogan County, Washington.

Wicked Problem

Okanogan County is a huge, sparsely populated and poor area with limited access to specialty care of any kind and no integrated palliative care services.

Approach

Our approach is to build palliative care services that are accessible to all residents of Okanogan County, with a special focus on the LatinX and Native American communities. We started the Okanogan Palliative Care Initiative and have partnered with the local hospice, community clinics and hospitals, among others.

Impact

Our goals are to:

1. Build a specialized palliative care clinical service to support seriously ill patients and their primary care providers
2. Increase advance care planning by offering community education and workshops
3. Develop palliative care services that are responsive to the unique challenges and cultural attributes of the LatinX and Native American communities
4. Educate community providers including Emergency Medical Services (EMS) on primary palliative care

We will share more when our project is completed at the end of 2022.

Partnering for Palliative Care Poster Presentation