Supportive & Palliative Care at UPMC
What is Palliative Care?
Patients with advanced chronic disease, such as cancer, severe heart or kidney disease or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), can benefit from Supportive & Palliative Care services offered with UPMC. Supportive and palliative care is delivered by a specially trained team that helps manage a patient's physical pain and symptoms as well as the social, spiritual and emotional challenges facing patients with a life-limiting disease. Care can be given to patients in a hospital setting or long-term care facility.
A patient may still be actively treating his or her disease and not require hospice care; however, a person with a life-limiting disease can face difficult physical, emotional and perhaps spiritual challenges.
Palliative care addresses these by:
- Providing a team approach to caring for the patient. Our team includes doctors, nurse practitioners who specialize in palliative medicine, medical social workers, and a chaplain
- Coordinating care between the patient, the palliative care team and the patient's doctor to provide comfort for physical symptoms
- Providing support for the social, spiritual and emotional challenges that patients and families with life-limiting diseases experience
- Helping patients to live as full of a dignified life as possible
How Palliative Care Can Help You?
The palliative care team can help patients and their families by
- Participating in discussions with the patient and his or her family to help everyone understand the patient's disease or condition
- Assisting the patient's primary care doctor with symptom management, helping to manage pain and enhance the patient's comfort
- Providing emotional support
- Assisting with difficult decisions about the patient's life-limiting disease
- Coordinating hospital and community services that are available to help the patient and his or her family
- Exploring spiritual issues with the goal of obtaining peace
Who Should Receive Palliative Care?
Any patient struggling from physical symptoms or psychological issues that accompany life-limiting conditions, such as
- Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)
- Dementia
- Heart disease
- Kidney disease
- Liver disease
- Cancer
If you think palliative care is right for you, contact your primary care physician for a referral.
Additional Resources:
Contact Us
Supportive & Palliative Care
1100 Grampian Boulevard, 4th Floor
Williamsport, PA 17701
Phone: (570) 320-7680
Fax: 1 (800) 848-2213
Home Care & Hospice (Wellsboro)
32-36 Central Ave, 3rd Floor
Wellsboro, PA 16901
Phone: (570) 723-0760 or 1 (800) 724-3967
Office Hours: Monday - Friday, 8 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.
The Green Home (Tioga County)
37 Central Ave
Wellsboro, PA 16901
Phone: (570) 724-3131
UPMC offers compassionate palliative care in Williamsport and Wellsboro, PA, and the surrounding areas, ensuring patients experience the utmost comfort during the time that matters most.