Center to Advance Palliative Care
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| Center to Advance Palliative Care | |
|---|---|
| Name | Center to Advance Palliative Care |
| Formation | 1996 |
| Headquarters | New York City |
| Leader title | President |
| Leader name | Diane E. Meier |
| Parent organization | Mount Sinai Health System |
Center to Advance Palliative Care is a United States-based nonprofit organization focused on expanding access to specialty palliative care services across hospitals, health systems, and communities. Founded in the mid-1990s, it provides technical assistance, education, and policy guidance to clinicians, administrators, and policymakers to integrate symptom management and goals-of-care conversations into routine clinical practice. The organization works alongside a range of academic centers, philanthropic funders, and government agencies to scale models of care and measure outcomes.
History
The organization was established in 1996 amid growing interest from institutions such as Mount Sinai Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Johns Hopkins Medicine, UCSF Medical Center, and Mayo Clinic in formalizing specialty palliative care programs. Early collaborations included partnerships with foundations like The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, The John A. Hartford Foundation, The Atlantic Philanthropies, and governmental actors such as the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Over time, the organization contributed to national initiatives involving stakeholders from American Medical Association, American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization, and academic projects at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. Leadership figures associated with the field include clinicians linked to Mount Sinai Health System, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Stanford Health Care, and Massachusetts General Hospital.
Mission and Programs
The organization's stated mission emphasizes increasing access to specialty palliative care and improving serious-illness care through programmatic tools used by institutions such as Cleveland Clinic, Kaiser Permanente, Penn Medicine, and NYU Langone Health. Core program areas mirror national initiatives like value-based purchasing programs under Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and quality frameworks referenced by The Joint Commission, National Quality Forum, and Institute for Healthcare Improvement. Program models promoted draw on evidence from trials and demonstrations involving partners such as Duke University School of Medicine, Yale School of Medicine, University of Michigan Health, and University of Pennsylvania Health System.
Education and Training
Educational activities include curricula and workshops designed for clinicians from institutions like Columbia University, George Washington University, University of California, San Diego, and University of Washington. Training formats span interprofessional team training used by Veterans Health Administration networks, online modules paralleling continuing medical education delivered through American Board of Internal Medicine pathways, and faculty development modeled after programs at Weill Cornell Medicine and Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. The organization has convened symposia with professional societies such as American Academy of Neurology, American College of Physicians, Society of Critical Care Medicine, and American Society of Clinical Oncology.
Research and Policy Advocacy
Research efforts align with investigations at centers including Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Brown University, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, and University of California, Los Angeles. Policy advocacy work interacts with federal entities like the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, legislative offices on Capitol Hill, and regulatory bodies such as Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to influence payment models and quality measurement. The organization synthesizes evidence cited in reports by think tanks and research programs including The Brookings Institution, Kaiser Family Foundation, RAND Corporation, and Commonwealth Fund to support reimbursement reforms, workforce development, and national strategy documents shaped alongside National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
Partnerships and Collaborations
The organization maintains partnerships with a wide array of hospitals, health systems, universities, and professional societies, including Mount Sinai Health System, Cleveland Clinic, Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins University, Stanford University, and University of Pennsylvania. Collaborative projects have involved payers such as Medicare, large philanthropic actors like The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Gates Foundation in related domains, and international networks connected to institutions such as King's College London and University of Toronto. Multisector alliances have included engagement with National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization, American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, Institute for Healthcare Improvement, and health technology partners supplying electronic health record integration used by Epic Systems Corporation and Cerner Corporation.
Impact and Metrics
Impact assessment leverages metrics familiar to health services research at Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, National Quality Forum, and academic evaluations from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Harvard Medical School. Reported outcomes include expansion of inpatient and outpatient specialty palliative care teams at hospitals such as Massachusetts General Hospital, reductions in hospital length-of-stay documented in collaborations with University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, and increased documentation of advance care planning mirrored in initiatives at NYU Langone Health and Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Evaluation methods draw on randomized controlled trials and pragmatic studies from partners including Duke Clinical Research Institute and Yale School of Medicine and inform policy proposals circulated to Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and congressional committees.