Minnesota Serious Illness Action Network

The Palliative Care Summit: Practice, Policy, and Payment builds on input from the 2020 Virtual Serious Illness Action Network Forum.  

To address urgent needs in serious illness care during Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), Stratis Health and Minnesota Network of Hospice & Palliative Care (MNHPC) convened a virtual forum in August 2020, resulting in a new report that includes action plans for the pandemic and beyond.

To ensure all stakeholders were represented, more than 100 attendees included patients and families, caregivers, clinicians, health care organization leaders and staff, payers, and allied organizations concerned with serious illness care across the full continuum of care. 

Stratis Health and MNHCP leaders synthesized the input and discussion into actionable recommendations organized around three themes:

  • Technology and Infrastructure
    • Rethink how technology can support those with serious illness care
    • Develop a registry for physician orders for life-sustaining treatment (POLST) and advance care planning (ACP) documentation
    • Improve access to and support for the use of technology for patients and caregivers
  • Workforce and Training Support
    • Normalize and proactively support ACP as part of health care delivery
    • Support workforce development and confidence in technology use for remote care delivery
  • Regulation and Reimbursement
    • Reduce variations in coverage and payment requirements across payers that make it challenging to develop and deliver serious illness care
    • Provide adequate reimbursement and regulatory incentives for increasing utilization of ACP
    • Implement regulatory and reimbursement flexibilities to structure services that better meet the needs of seriously ill patients

View the full report, with real-life illustrations and examples from forum participants.

The Palliative Care Summit: Practice, Policy, and Payment puts the feedback from Serious Illness Action Network stakeholders by offering palliative care training for providers and advancing efforts to improve palliative care policy and payment.