Safeguarding palliative and serious illness care in America

If a society's greatness is measured by how it treats its most vulnerable, we live in discouraging times for the more than 13 million adults and 700,000 children with serious illnesses in the United States of America (U.S.).1,2 While progress had been made to improve serious illness care over the past few decades, emerging policies and practices threaten the important role that palliative care plays in the improvement of quality patient care and outcomes throughout the disease continuum and especially at the end of life.