Becca Hutchinson

Discipline: Physician

Funding awarded to: MaineHealth

Developing a Palliative Collaborative Care Model for Patients Living with Heart Failure in Rural Maine

This project integrates three strategies to improve access to palliative care for rural patients: (1) develop primary palliative skills of rural nurses, (2) leverage technology to connect palliative care specialists in urban areas to support and coach front-line nurses, and (3) use community based participatory research methods to adapt and implement innovative models of palliative care. Using community based participatory methods, I will work with rural communities to determine how best to develop rural nurses’ primary palliative care skills. I will then combine this education with an adapted collaborative care model. Our collaborative care model will connect an interprofessional specialty palliative care team with the front-line nurses to provide case specific guidance and coaching. When indicated, the specialty palliative care team can meet with the patient via tele-technology. This project, my leadership development activities, and participation in the Sojourns Scholar Leadership Program will facilitate my growth into the leader that seriously ill patients living in rural areas need.

“In my career, I have routinely witnessed the impact of inadequate access to high quality palliative care for patients with heart failure (HF). Seeing patients with HF who would benefit from palliative care suffer because they could not access this care in rural Maine, motivated me to apply for the Sojourns Scholar Leadership program. Through this experience, I will have the opportunity to become a national leader who can reduce national disparities in access to palliative care for rural patients.”