NORTHERN CALIFORNIA – End-of-life health care often is difficult and stressful for an individual and their family.

More than 79 percent of individuals needing end-of-life care require hospitalizations. For the 79 individuals who participated in Partnership HealthPlan of California’s (PHC) Partners in Palliative Care pilot program, less than half required hospitalization.

In September 2015, PHC launched Partners in Palliative Care, which focused on patient and family-centered care by anticipating, preventing and treating suffering during end-of-life care.

For every dollar spend to administer the pilot, three dollars were saved in hospital costs.

Four organizations – ResolutionCare (Humboldt County), Collabria Care (Napa County), Interim Healthcare (Shasta County), and Yolo Hospice Care (Yolo County) – provided care that included assessment, pain management services, care coordination, access to care giver support and case management.

From enrollment to death, 55 percent those participating in the pilot avoided hospitalization, compared to 21 percent of matched comparison beneficiaries.

Only 35 percent of pilot participants died within 30 days of a hospital admission versus more than 70 percent of comparison beneficiaries.

A UCSF study from 2010 to 2013 showed that 76 percent of safety-net patients, individuals with disabilities, low-income, and/or uninsured, were hospitalized in the last six months of life. Of those, 45 percent were hospitalized in the last month of life, 33 percent died in the hospital and 21 percent had multiple admissions in the last month of life.

Although the pilot is now over, the Partners in Palliative Care pilot will guide PHC’s implementation of palliative cares services and hospice services for those with cancer, end stage liver disease, congestive heart failure and chronic obstructive disease.

PHC is a nonprofit community based health care organization that contracts with the State to administer Medi-Cal benefits through local care providers ensuring Medi-Cal recipients have access to comprehensive, cost-effective health care. PHC provides quality health care to over 565,000 Medi-Cal members.

Beginning in Solano County in 1994 PHC now provides services to 14 Northern California counties – Del Norte, Humboldt, Lake, Lassen, Marin, Mendocino, Modoc, Napa, Shasta, Siskiyou, Solano, Sonoma, Trinity and Yolo.