Improving health care for people living 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

After ten beautiful meetings of our Massachusetts Patient and Community Review Board our pilot year has come to an end. Designed to provide a thoughtful space for patients and community members to share their insights and experiences with healthcare researchers and program developers, our Board members really shined. They shared from both their personal and professional experiences interacting with the health care system.