Innovations in End-of-Life Care
an international journal of leaders in end-of-life care

Palliative CareCenter & Hospice of the North Shore
Dorothy L. Pitner, RN, BSN, MM, President and CEO
2821 Central Street
Evanston, IL 60201

Palliative CareCenter & Hospice of the North Shore is a nonprofit, independent, community organization serving the Chicago metropolitan area. Founded in 1978 as the Hospice of the North Shore, Palliative CareCenter provides hospice care at home and in a 15-bed inpatient hospice unit. They offer extensive bereavement services to adults and children for thirteen months after the death of a loved one, as well as a bereavement program specifically for children, including a healing from grief day camp. Additional services include: a pediatric palliative care program for children with life-limiting illness (Care Center for Kids), a JCAHO-accredited home care division, a community outreach program, home care assistants, and a palliative care team consultation service. All of these elements combine to provide coordinated, supportive care to community members at all stages of illness and dying.

Palliative CareCenter has participated in a number of education and quality improvement efforts. In 1997, the Center participated in the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) Collaborative on Improving End-of-Life Care for the Chronically Ill. In 1999, Palliative CareCenter collaborated on a study conducted by Brown University on the benefits of end-of-life care in the home environment. They are currently involved in a new nationwide Medicaring study, spearheaded by Joanne Lynn, MD. Medicaring is an effort, which aims to establish a coordinated and coherent system of care for patients with advanced, progressive, and ultimately fatal chronic disease. The goal of Medicaring is to help this population of patients avoid being admitted to the emergency room and the acute care system as a rule, while maintaining and improving patients' quality of life and simultaneously managing and reducing institutional costs of care.

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