Palliative Care in Rural Minnesota: Findings from Stratis Health's Minnesota Rural Palliative Care Initiative.

Palliative care, which involves managing symptoms, controlling pain and addressing stress caused by a chronic or terminal illness, has been shown to keep patients out of the hospital and allow them to stay home and live more comfortably with their illness. Typically, it is provided by an interdisciplinary team led by a physician trained in palliative medicine. Rural areas have not always had access to such specialists. Yet, today, rural health care organizations are finding ways to create palliative care programs that meet the needs of their chronically ill and aging populations. This article describes a six-year initiative led by Stratis Health to advance palliative care in rural Minnesota. It highlights the work of FirstLight Health System in Mora and describes Stratis Health's Rural Palliative Care Measurement Pilot Project, an effort to develop and test measures for evaluating rural palliative care programs.

Minnesota Rural Palliative Care Initiative: building palliative care capacity in rural Minnesota.

BACKGROUND: Significant gaps exist in the availability of palliative care in rural hospitals and communities, even though rural populations are often disproportionately elderly and chronically ill. Few studies have examined what models of palliative care would be sustainable in a rural community. METHODS: We studied the effects of a novel approach to palliative care program development with 10 rural Minnesota community teams over 18 months. The Minnesota Rural Palliative Care Initiative (MRPCI) included a three-prong framework consisting of community capacity theory, a learning collaborative model, and the National Quality Forum (NQF) Preferred Practices for Palliative and Hospice Care Quality. RESULTS: MRPCI confirmed the feasibility of building palliative care capacity in rural communities using this framework. By the end of the 18 months, all 10 teams had identified a target population, developed and refined an action plan, and included at least two strategies to address community needs or gaps related to NQF preferred practices. Only one community had an existing palliative care program at the start of the MRPCI. During the course of the collaborative, five additional communities built a core team to implement a palliative care program. CONCLUSIONS: Palliative care development is necessary in rural communities, and envisioning a program that combines structure, accountability, customized guidance, tools, and networking across settings is essential for success.

Palliative care in rural Minnesota. Findings from Stratis Health's Minnesota Rural Palliative Care Initiative.

Palliative medicine involves managing symptoms, controlling pain and addressing stress caused by chronic illness. It can help keep patients out of the hospital and allow them to stay in their homes and live more comfortably with their illnesses. Most palliative care programs are found in urban areas, and both national and statewide studies have found a dearth of such services in rural communities. This article describes Stratis Health's Minnesota Rural Palliative Care Initiative, which is bringing representatives from organizations within rural communities together to learn from each other how to provide palliative care services. It also highlightsthe efforts of organizations in four communitiesthat are providing such care and discusses plans for evaluating these and other programs.