Palliative care is a specialized type of holistic, team-based care aimed at providing pain and symptom management to patients with advanced or terminal illness.  While palliative care is a central component of hospice care for terminally ill patients, it also holds great promise for improving care experiences for individuals with serious illness and reducing the incidence of acute care exacerbations, which may, in turn, reduce costs.  While Medicare and most Medicaid programs do not offer a stand-alone palliative care benefit, a growing number of providers (including home health agencies, hospices, physician group practices, and hospitals) now offer palliative care as part of existing benefit structures.

Palliative care nursing is a specialty that requires demonstrated expertise in a number of areas, including advance care planning, pain and symptom management, patient and family education, counseling, and care coordination.  Unfortunately, the supply of qualified palliative care professionals has not kept pace with the need.  In the interest of ensuring their palliative care programs are staffed with highly qualified personnel, many organizations are encouraging their clinical staff to pursue specialty training and/or certification in palliative care.

The National Association for Home Care & Hospice (NAHC), the Hospice and Palliative Credentialing Center (HPCC)  and the Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association (HPNA) have developed the following brief survey for home health and hospice providers to determine the degree of interest in pursuing palliative specialty training and/or certification in hospice and palliative nursing for their nursing staff (the content outline for the certification program is available HERE).

Please limit your response to one per agency. Results of this survey will be used in the aggregate but individual responses will be kept strictly confidential.

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* 1. What programs does your organization operate (please check ALL that apply)?

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* 2. Do nurses employed by your program(s) provide palliative care services?

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* 3. Under what programs do you offer palliative nursing services (please check ALL that apply)?

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* 4. How many individuals do you employ to provide palliative nursing services in all of your programs combined?

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* 5. What is the average daily census (ADC) served by your palliative nurses either under your palliative care or hospice programs?

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* 6. What experience, training and/or credentialing do you require for newly-hired nurses that will provide palliative care services (please check ALL that apply)?

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* 7. Does your organization currently provide any financial support or merit increases for nurses who receive or maintain professional nursing certification?

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* 8. Is your organization considering offering financial support for your nurse employees who receive and/or maintain palliative/hospice nursing certification?

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* 9. What state(s) do you operate in?

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* 10. OPTIONAL: Contact Information

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