Palliative and End-of-Life Care 2015-2016 

Palliative care is patient- and family-centered care that optimizes quality of life by anticipating, preventing, and alleviating suffering throughout the continuum of a person’s illness by addressing physical, intellectual, emotional, social, and spiritual needs and facilitating patient autonomy, access to information, and choice. End-of-life care is comprehensive care that addresses medical, emotional, spiritual, and social needs during the last stages of a person’s terminal illness. Much end-of-life care is palliative, when life-prolonging interventions are no longer appropriate, effective, or desired. The National Quality Forum’s (NQF) portfolio of measures for Palliative and End-of-Life Care includes measures addressing physical aspects of care, including the management of pain, dyspnea, and constipation, spiritual, psychological, cultural, and legal aspects of care, and care of the patient at the end of life. For this project, the Palliative and End-of-Life Standing Committee evaluated eight newly submitted measures and 16 measures undergoing maintenance review against NQF’s standard evaluation criteria. Twenty-three measures were recommended for endorsement, and one measure was withdrawn from consideration by the developer.