CARES Program Helps Patients With Serious Illness

DANBURY — Lisa Schildwachter of Danbury Hospital and Maureen Moore, executive director of Regional Hospice of Western Connecticut, Inc, recently announced the implementation of the Danbury Hospital CARES Program, a consultative service for hospitalized patients with serious, complex, or life-threatening illness.

CARES stands for Collaborative Approach to Relieve and Ease Symptoms.

Developed in collaboration with Regional Hospice, the Danbury Hospital CARES Program provides a palliative approach to symptom management, enhancement of function, physical comfort, quality of life, psychological support and communication about goals of care for the patient as well as the family. Danbury Hospital CARES Program services are provided anytime during the illness, either as the primary focus of care, or simultaneously with all other appropriate medical treatment.

“Like many other top hospitals in the country, Danbury Hospital created the CARES Program because we recognize that hospitals are where medical care is provided to the sickest patients in the United States, and are therefore the single most important place for patients with serious illness to receive pain and symptom control,” said Ms Schildwachter, who is the hospital’s service line executive of oncology and outpatient services.

“We know that patients need this care to complement their life-prolonging or curative treatments,” she said. “We go beyond the efforts of most other programs by also arranging coordination of care among providers and assistance in transitions between care levels, whether it be home care, nursing homes, or hospice.”

Working closely with the patient’s primary physician, the Danbury Hospital CARES Program provides expert pain and symptom management; help in navigating the health care system; spiritual and psychological support for patients and family caregivers; and improved quality of life and comfort throughout the course of an illness.

“Numerous studies indicate that the current state of the health care system causes a majority of seriously ill patients to suffer from needless pain and other controllable symptoms, as well as depression and anxiety,” said Ms Moore. “Through the CARES Program palliative approach, people facing serious illness can have their symptoms better managed, and families receive the help and support they need”.

A Danbury Hospital CARES Program consultation is appropriate for anyone with serious, complex, or life-threatening illness, and can be requested by the patient, the patient’s primary physician, or by the patient’s family. Danbury Hospital inpatients also may be referred for a CARES Program consultation by other professional, support, or referral resources. The CARES Program consultation team involves a multidisciplinary group of medical experts that include the patient’s primary physician, an advanced practice nurse practitioner, nursing staff with specialized skills, physician hospitalists, social workers, pastoral care, pharmacists, and other health care professionals as needed.

The team reviews the patient’s medical history, current treatment plans and meets with the patient and family to determine a plan of care that is offered simultaneously with all other appropriate medical treatment.

“Given the reality that, in this day and age, the typical hospitalized patient is increasingly elderly and much sicker than in the past, combined with the increased emphasis upon shorter length of hospital stays, the primary focus is, out of necessity, on the individual’s immediate health issues while certain other concerns may not receive the attention and priority they deserve,” said Robert Kloss, MD, Danbury Hospital Department of Oncology/Hematology. Dr Kloss is co-director of the CARES Program with Jo-Ann Maroto-Soltis, MD, Department of Medicine, Hospitalist Service.

“I am excited and proud that Danbury Hospital is in the forefront of the palliative care movement, as our already outstanding level of care will be further enhanced by this innovative program,” said Dr Kloss.

For more information regarding the newly implemented Danbury Hospital CARES Program, call Karen Mulvihill, advanced practice registered nurse, CARES Program coordinator, at 731-8648.