Staff training and effective communication play important roles in a palliative care provider’s ability to reach referral sources and address unmet needs among seriously ill patients and their families.
Palliative care providers have employed various outreach strategies to better communicate and define the scope of their interdisciplinary services to other health care providers. Some of the tactics hitting the mark have focused on stronger education around palliative care delivery, according to Blue Ridge Care COO Altonia Garrett.
Virginia-based Blue Ridge Care launched its palliative care program roughly three years ago. The organization’s referral relationship development has largely hinged on having tools and resources easily available that clearly outline palliative patient identifiers, according to Garrett. This can help address the common challenges of other health care providers conflating palliative care with hospice, she said at the Hospice News ELEVATE conference in Florida.
“[It’s] virtual and in-person, organized approaches to educate the providers,” Garrett told Palliative Care News during the conference. “Giving them tools and resources, whether it’s a trigger sheet of the scenarios and things to look for.”
Strategy #1: referral education
Referral sources need a firm understanding of how a palliative care team can help alleviate some of their most significant pain points, according to Garrett.
For example, staffing shortages are rampant across the health care continuum. Palliative care programs are poised to address this issue when it comes to improved clinical capacity and filling in the gaps of patients’ medical and non-medical needs, she added.
Hospice News photo by TBAR Productions Hospice News photo by TBAR ProductionsQuality is another component to highlight, Garrett indicated. Palliative programs need to be able to communicate how their services can improve patient outcomes and lead to greater family support.
Successful recruitment and retention and quality can speak volumes about a palliative care program’s value proposition, according to Garrett.
“[Something] to consider is the value proposition for all parties involved. Providers want to do the best for patients and their families,” she said. “It’s sharing the win for the patient and family experience, and the win for them as a provider to have some work-life balance. Perhaps those late night calls are mitigated through our support? So, focusing on the wins for all involved, particularly the patient and family, and then the balance they can have as providers.”
Strategy #2: effective communication
Staff training is a significant part of a palliative provider’s ability to grow its reach, according to Jen Malko, vice president of business and development at Haven Hospice. The Florida-based former nonprofit was acquired last year by BrightSpring Health Services (Nasdaq: BTSG) and provides hospice, palliative care and advance care planning services across 18 counties in its home state.
A successful palliative referral outreach strategy involves training interdisciplinary clinical teams to hold goals-of-care conversations in myriad settings, Malko indicated. These discussions can occur at any point in a patient’s health trajectory and do not require a physician’s order or heavy resource investment. Holding goals-of-care conversations can allow for improved awareness around the types of services that can best align with a patient’s wishes such as palliative care, she stated.
Engaging in goal-concordant care discussions can lead to improved palliative care awareness and help drive referral growth, according to Malko.
“[It’s] three letters — G-O-C — that’s changed our life, goals of care,” Malko said at the ELEVATE conference. “We’ve trained everyone in our organization, from the person answering the phone to our patient care representatives, hospital and community liaisons, our providers and physicians, to have a goals-of-care discussion. We’re talking about sustainable palliative programs, but just having that goals-of-care conversation will determine what we need to do and what we have to provide. We really boiled it down … and doing that has opened the door tremendously just in the last year with growth.”
Hospice News photo by TBAR Productions Hospice News photo by TBAR ProductionsPalliative care providers’ most successful strategies focus on outcomes that matter most to their referral sources, said Tony Kudner, chief strategy officer at Transcend Strategy Group. The consulting firm provides strategic growth services such as sales, branding and marketing solutions to palliative, hospice and home health providers.
Much like their person-centered care models, palliative providers need an individualized approach to reaching referral sources across diverse health care settings, according to Kudner. Staff need sufficient training on not only defining what palliative care is and is not, but also what the return on investment of developing a referral relationship could be, he stated. This requires effective, insightful and adaptable outreach approaches tailored to address the biggest obstacles preventing better operational efficiency, clinical capacity balance and quality improvement.
“[It’s] the concept of needs-based selling,” Kudner told Palliative Care News at the conference. “Everybody has a different need, and you want to line up what your program can do for a referral source with what’s important to them. The approach has to be individualized, and it has to be put in language about how it’s going to make their lives easier. Engaging in needs-based selling and lining up the benefits of your program on the person-to-person level is critical.”
