VANCOUVER, Wash. — The Regence Foundation recently awarded $238,000 over two years to PeaceHealth St. John Foundation to implement a hospital-based palliative care program at St. John Medical Center in Longview. Palliative care is a medical specialty geared toward helping seriously ill patients find relief from the symptoms of their disease.

"When patients with serious illness talk about the kind of care and support they want, they often describe palliative care," said Kieren Porter, Regence Foundation board chair. "The Regence Foundation seeks to increase awareness of the benefits of palliative care among patients and their families, as well as the medical community. Hospitals are a key component in making this type of care available to patients at any stage of diagnosis."

The grant will fund the hospital’s implementation of the interdisciplinary plan it developed in 2010 with the help of a Regence Foundation grant that included training through the Palliative Care Leadership Center (PCLC), a national training and mentoring initiative to help hospitals start and expand high-quality palliative care programs.

"With our new program palliative care will be available to our patients and their families from the point of diagnosis – not just through hospice or at the very end of life," said Kristine Keough-Forte at St. John Medical Center. "The Regence Foundation grant will help us serve as many as 500 patients in the next two years, as well as provide valuable palliative care education and training for our staff."

The grant is part of The Regence Foundation’s Sojourns™ grantmaking program to promote hospital and community based palliative care services. Through Sojourns™, The Foundation aims to foster best practices, leadership and collaboration that help people with life-threatening and incurable illness to access quality palliative care in their own community.