The Geriatric Cardiology Section Palliative Care Work Group will act as an advisory group to the ACC – charged with making recommendations as well as working with other key member groups to identify a set of broad end-of-life/palliative care initiatives that result in quality improvements in the lives of cardiovascular patients facing death. The overarching goal of the group is to provide clinical and evidence-based research on providing care at the end-of-life for cardiovascular patients.

The group will hold one-hour conference calls on a monthly basis.

It is increasingly being appreciated that palliative care (PC) is an essential part of clinical care for patients with cardiovascular disease. While previously equated with only end of life care, Palliative Care across the spectrum of patients with cardiovascular disease from the pediatric patient with congenital heart disease to the older adult with advanced heart failure have been shown to enhance patient and caregiver satisfaction, reduce symptoms, improve communication between health care teams and patients, promote patient engagement, increase provider satisfaction, reduce costs and paradoxically, potential save lives.

With an increasing focus on patient centered care that employs a team based approach to cardiovascular care, this intensive at ACC 2017 is focused on advancing the palliative care (PC) skills of all CV providers (cardiologists, nurses and nurse practitioners, physician assistants, fellows and pharmacists) who provide care in all arenas of CV practice (pediatric cardiology, geriatric cardiology, interventional, imaging, heart failure, electrophysiology and CV team).

This PC intensive will consist of three sequential sessions at ACC 2017 that are aimed at accomplishing the following objectives for attendees:

  • Refine the understanding of palliative care as not just for patients at the end of their lives but for all patients with cardiovascular disease across the continuum of care (the 99%%!!)
  • Provide the rationale for palliative care thereby facilitating the attendees to promote palliative care at their institutions.
  • Enumerate the latest data on the impact of PC on outcomes of interest including but not limited to quality of life, cost, function, symptoms and survival for a wide spectrum of cardiovascular patients.
  • Highlight controversies that could hinder the application of PC to the 99% of cardiovascular patients that require such services, and most importantly
  • Provide essential and practical skills that attendees can employ immediately in advancing palliative care needs for their patients
  • Session 57
  • Session 58
  • Session 59