Improving health care for people living with serious illness

A new study published in JAMA Network Open and led by Carine Davila, Palliative Care Physician at Massachusetts General Hospital, in partnership with the Coalition, highlights critical disparities in the experience of patient-clinician communication among adults with serious illness.

David Sontag, director of ethics for Beth Israel Lahey Health, discussed the HCA Program in a recent interview on WHYY’s, The Pulse. 

There are at least 13 million adults and approximately 700,000 children living with a serious illness in the United States. While significant progress has been made to advance palliative care access and delivery, there are still many parts of the U.S. where such holistic care is not well-integrated or supported—resulting in unnecessary suffering, avoidable expenses, overwhelmed caregivers, and clinician burnout