Palliative Care for the Poor and Disenfranchised: A View from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Palliative care is likely to become the norm of practice in the mainstream of US healthcare in the coming decade. Healthcare providers are taking the lessons of hospice care and incorporating them in other settings, especially hospitals and nursing homes, where the majority of Americans spend their last days of life. According to unpublished survey findings hundreds of US hospitals have palliative care programmes and many others are planning to establish one. Although these numbers represent a small percentage of the more than 5000 hospitals in the USA, anecdotal evidence suggests that this growth is a very recent phenomenon and is continuing at a rapid rate.