Palliative Care
Support for Mind, Body and Spirit
We offer a comprehensive palliative care program for people throughout New Jersey who are dealing with serious illness. Our team of medical specialists collaborates with you, your family, and your health care team to develop a care plan focused on easing the stress, pain and symptoms of your condition — bringing comfort to your body, mind and spirit.
Although they share some characteristics, palliative care and hospice care are not the same things. Hospice care provides end-of-life care for people with a terminal illness. Palliative care is a medical specialty available from the moment of diagnosis with a serious illness and is provided alongside other curative therapies.
Palliative Care Services
We offer palliative care programs tailored to patients’ individual needs, which include at-home care through Hackensack Meridian Health Care Journey™, outpatient care at the Center for Integrated Palliative Medicine and inpatient care for patients currently admitted in any of our acute-care hospitals.
We are dedicated to delivering the highest quality coordinated medical care. Hackensack Meridian Health Care Journey is a home-based palliative care program. Our team works closely with your primary care physician to provide you and your family with an extra layer of support. Through home visits and phone calls, we help to coordinate comprehensive and personalized care that you receive along with your regular ongoing course of treatment.
Partnering with You for Improved Quality of Life
Hackensack Meridian Health Care Journey focuses on improving the quality of life of people facing illnesses such as heart disease, lung disease, kidney or liver disease, cancer or neurological conditions like stroke and dementia. Along with the treatment of your illness, emphasis is placed on pain and symptom management, improved communication and coordination of your care. This program will also help you to share your values, preferences, and expectations for care with your physician — a very important component of ensuring your quality of life.
Our team is comprised of physicians, nurses, social workers and many others who will work together with your physician to deliver care individualized to your needs. Together we will provide:
- Improved communication including personal calls and conferences to discuss your health with your primary doctor and your loved ones
- Education specific to your medications and illnesses to help you take better care of yourself. This may include videos, literature and mailings which you can share with your family
- Comprehensive care including expert management of symptoms such as pain, nausea, and shortness of breath; evaluation to ensure you have all of the appropriate equipment you need to make getting around as easy and safe as possible; ongoing assessments of your physical, psychosocial and spiritual well-being; and emotional support for you and your family
Coordination of care to ensure that your health care needs are met. This includes partnering with you, your physicians and your family to help you navigate the often complex health care system - Social work services to assist you with insurance needs, financial guidance, transportation, or when you just need someone to listen
- Advance care planning to help you make informed decisions about the kind of treatment you want … and don’t want – as your illness progresses.
Call 732-202-8071 for more information.
Center for Integrated Palliative Medicine
Our mission at the Center for Integrated Palliative Medicine (CIPM) practice is to provide support, symptom management, and encouragement for individuals dealing with a serious illness. The outpatient practice is staffed by palliative medicine specialist physicians, advance practice nurses and licensed clinical social workers who work together as a team. The practice offers pain and symptom management, advance care planning and emotional support, and works closely with the patient’s other physicians to be an extra layer of reinforcement. CIPM does not require a physician referral unless required by your insurance.
We have several convenient locations throughout New Jersey:
- Brick
- Manahawkin
- Neptune
- Red Bank
Call 732-268-8470 for more information.
The Palliative Care team collaborates with health care professionals throughout our network to provide symptom management, support and fluid communication for patients and loved ones throughout the illness journey. The Palliative Care Service is an extra layer of support for patients currently admitted to our hospitals or subacute care centers.
When it comes to quality of life for our patients, we go above and beyond to make certain they are afforded nothing short of the best. Our team is committed to providing an exceptional human experience through holistic person-centered care.
3 Core Health Care Professionals complete the specialty palliative care consult:
- Physician/APN
- Palliative Care Social Worker
- Pastoral Care
Pastoral care offers complementary modalities of holistic care to patients, families, and staff recognizing the connection between the body, the mind, and the spirit in the healing process.