Palliative care aims to provide patients suffering from life-threatening illnesses with an improved quality of life and ease their families facing the problem of caring for their patients. The Joint Commission, in association with other health providing institutions, have initiated programs to enable a continuous quality improvement in patient care through palliative care. They are educating their patients by making them aware of the serious medical conditions, who can seek palliative care and its benefits ( Kelley & Morrison, 2015). One of the programs is "Speak Up: What you need to know about your serious illness and palliative care," whose brochure was published in 2012 when the program campaign began. It is a campaign that is steered to aid patients, families and friends compact the emotional, physical, and spiritual distresses regarding living with an austere terminal illness.
Summary of the Brochure
The brochure, "Speak Up: What You Need to Know about Your Serious Illness and Palliative Care," broadly navigates the definition of palliative care and highlights a series of topics that may help the patient understand palliative care. The brochure describes the problems that palliative care can assist the patient deal with, like depression, breathing problems, and emotional problems among other conditions. The patients and their families are introduced and explained to how to get palliative care and when it is necessary to seek it. The brochure outlines the dissimilarity between palliative and other treatment options. It goes further to discuss the support and care given to one's family or friends. Of interest, the kind of questions the palliative care provider is most likely to inquire from you and what issues one ought to feel free to ask the care provider. Where one can get palliative care, how to pay for it, and lastly, it provides sites to get more information on palliative care.
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The communication between the patients and the palliative healthcare provider is encouraged by asking questions. The communication is steered by making the patients well informed about palliative care, what to expect, which in the end makes the patient more curious about their life ( Pantilat et al., 2017) . The patient knows prior the kind of question to ask the palliative healthcare provider. For instance, the patient might want to know the cost of the services, if they are certified, how they will create the patient's palliative care plan, among other questions outlines in the brochure.
Evaluation of the Brochure
The brochure did capture a broad range of questions patients might be having, which they can get answers once they contact the care provider. The brochure is comprehensive in the sense that almost everything is captured, including some information the patient might not ask in a typical hospital setting ( Kelley & Morrison, 2015) . It would have been better had the brochure given examples of hospitals or hospice that do offer palliative care. The subject on palliative care has my interest because most patients, especially aging, do suffer a lot when they do not have anyone to take care of them every single day, especially when they have life-threatening diseases.
Palliative care is not provided in some hospitals, which makes it difficult to stay in a hospital, especially for terminal and degenerative conditions. Seeking palliative care allows alleviation of pain and emotion distress. The type of care offered is not similar to that provided in any hospital. The information in the brochure is thorough, which is why I can use it in my patient education on palliative care. Rarely does one go to a hospital or gerontological care and get detailed information like palliative care, which is why applying it is better for the patients. The information in the brochure is clear for the patient, but in situations where they do not understand some aspects, the care provider recommending palliative care can make further clarifications. The current and ongoing research on life-threatening diseases does study the contributing factors which have been covered in the brochure ( Pantilat et al., 2017) . Some of the associated conditions can be handled through palliative care.
The people benefiting the most from the brochure are the patients suffering from a severe life-threatening illness, both adults and kids, and their family members seeking emotional, physical, and spiritual support ( Pantilat et al., 2017) . In addition to the patients and family, health care providers like nurses and physicians can use the information to recommend their patients for palliative care. The information in the brochure increases the patients safety in the sense that if a patient knows early enough how to take care of their health, the palliative care providers will take specific measures that a family member will fail to ( Kelley & Morrison, 2015) . Some mistakes and problems like depression can be avoided if one has all the support spiritually, emotionally, and physically.
Conclusion
Palliative care is essential for patients facing life-threatening diseases as it helps alleviate the problems they are facing alongside their family and friends. In some cases, patients could want detailed information but fail to get it. Through the brochure, they are made aware of what to expect and how to get help. Palliative care is an essential healthcare step in helping individuals be well versed with the disease conditions they are dealing with, where to get help and what it entails. Patients are encouraged to have excellent lateral communication with their care providers. Also, the brochure provides the patient with sites to seek more information on serious illness and palliative care.
References
Kelley, A. S., & Morrison, R. S. (2015). Palliative care for the seriously ill. New England Journal of Medicine , 373 (8), 747-755 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMra1404684
Pantilat, S. Z., Marks, A. K., Bischoff, K. E., Bragg, A. R., & O'Riordan, D. L. (2017). The palliative care quality network: improving the quality of caring. Journal of palliative medicine , 20 (8), 862-868. https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/jpm.2016.0514
The Joint Commission Brochures and Infographics: (2012) https://www.jointcommission.org/certification/palliative_care.aspx
