WASHINGTON, D.C. -- June 15, 2009 -- As Congress debates health care reform this year, it is important that legislation include measures to better coordinate care, improve access to palliative care and address quality of life needs for patients with chronic diseases such as cancer.
Research proves that incorporating palliative care which addresses patients’ physical, psychological, and emotional needs into treatment plans can help reduce overall health care spending by helping patients to articulate their goals of care, matching treatments to those goals, and eliminating unwanted and unnecessary costly medical treatments. In sum, palliative care improves quality while reducing costs.
“Patients gain when doctors engage them in a coordinated way by including them in all aspects of the decision making process from the time of diagnosis and through the course of a disease,” said Daniel E. Smith, president of the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN). “We need to move to a model of caring for chronically ill patients and their caregivers that helps them live better with the disease.”
As the leading patient voice in the health care reform debate, ACS CAN, the advocacy affiliate of the American Cancer Society, is dedicated to ensuring that patients receive access to the full continuum of care. Health care reform legislation should include measures that address pain and symptom management, care planning, coordination and palliative care for patients and survivors.
“Health care reform needs to be about putting the patient first,” Smith said. “While Congress debates the merits of comprehensive health care reform, it must seize on the opportunity to include measures that match cancer care to a patient’s needs rather than matching the patient to the treatments.”
ACS CAN commends U.S. Reps. Lois Capps (D-CA) and Steve Israel (D-NY) for championing House legislation that would make the public and health professionals aware of the need to treat patient pain as a critical part of medical treatment. Health care legislation recently unveiled by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee acknowledges the importance of quality of life as part of quality care. ACS CAN will work with both parties in the House and the Senate to ensure that proposed health care reform legislation includes quality of life provisions that help people with cancer get well and stay well.
ACS CAN, the nonprofit, nonpartisan advocacy affiliate of the American Cancer Society, supports evidence-based policy and legislative solutions designed to eliminate cancer as a major health problem. ACS CAN works to encourage elected officials and candidates to make cancer a top national priority. ACS CAN gives ordinary people extraordinary power to fight cancer with the training and tools they need to make their voices heard. For more information, visit https://www.fightcancer.org/.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:
Audrey Pernik
Phone: (202) 661-5763
Email: [email protected]
Christina Saull
Phone: (202) 585-3250
Email: [email protected]