Research and Reports in Gynecology and Obstetrics

The critical role of integrating spiritual care in palliative goals of care

Joint Event on International Conference on Palliative Care, Obstetrics and Gynecology & International Conference on Stroke and Clinical Trials
February 28-March 01, 2019 | Paris, France

Elizabeth M Teklinski

Munson Home Care Traverse City, USA

Posters & Accepted Abstracts : Res Rep Gynaecol Obstet

DOI: 10.4066/2591-7366-C1-003

Abstract:

As part of a broader aim toward greater patient-centered care, an increasing number of medical leaders are urging health care systems and providers to offer more meaningful attention to patients’ spiritual concerns. According to the National Consensus Project for Quality Palliative Care, palliative medicine promotes comprehensive care in a holistic (mind, body, and spirit) context. Further, the goal of palliative care is to prevent and relieve suffering while supporting the best possible quality of life for patients and their families, regardless of the stage of their disease or their desire for additional therapies. Dame Cicely Saunders expanded the definition of suffering, or total pain, to include physical, psychological, social, and spiritual dimensions. Palliative care has thus emerged as an area of medicine where matters of spirituality have an increasingly important role in wholepatient care. The demonstrated benefits of addressing spiritual and existential questions to end-of-life discussions and decision-making include increased scores on patient satisfaction surveys, higher rates of hospice enrollment, and significant reports of better quality of life. There also appears to be a strong association between integrating spiritual care services and significantly lower rates of hospital deaths, decreased medical costs, fewer aggressive high-cost, lifesustaining medical interventions at the end of life, and a patient is much more likely to recommend the hospital system. The speaker will attempt to make the case that clinicians and providers should consider patients’ spiritual beliefs when a life-challenging prognosis is rendered, and a subsequent Goals of Care plan is discussed. The opportunity for integrating spiritual care from the very first palliative medicine Goals of Care conversation is significant in that it might better address a truer sense of holistic palliative care.

Biography:

E-mail:

eteklinski@att.net

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