Dedicated to transforming the delivery of care to more equitably address the symptoms and stress of serious illness.
Available for consulting engagements.
Why now?
As COVID-19 has made clear, we face an urgent need to transform our healthcare system. The Institute for Healthcare Improvement calls on us to provide quality healthcare to more people at an ever lower cost while still improving value.
But we’ve discovered that if we are to successfully address this “Triple Aim '' we need to add an additional aspect – attention to the well-being of our healthcare workforce. Evidence is overwhelming that too many of our clinicians are suffering the ill effects of attempting to provide quality care in situations poorly designed to achieve these aspirational goals.
A transformation in healthcare is needed if we are to create systems that align incentives to support clinicians in providing this level of Individualized care to all those with serious illness.
We need innovative educational initiatives that engage learners, tapping into intrinsic personal and professional motivations to provide care that they would be proud for their own loved ones to receive.
We need robust research efforts that provide meaningful outcome measures that inform the creation of novel programs and guide practice.
And we may periodically benefit from the external interprofessional perspective that consultants bring to assist us in co-creating systems that provide the infrastructure to support sustainable behavior change at a department or institutional level.
Fortunately, the integration of the principles of palliative care will go far in addressing these aims. Palliative care embraces an interprofessional collaborative team approach to provide contextualized quality care. Nuanced communication is key to ensure shared goals of care that are person-centered, family-focused and culturally-congruent.
Collaborative Caring was created to address these issues. I invite you to learn more about the services offered.
Shirley Otis-Green, MSW, MA, ACSW, LCSW, OSW-CE, FNAP, FAOSW is a licensed clinical social worker and founder of Collaborative Caring dedicated to enhancing excellence in the delivery of culturally-congruent, person-centered, family-focused, goal concordant interprofessional care. Shirley’s education, research and consultation efforts focus on quality-of-life, palliative care, leadership development and creating meaningful organizational change.
Palliative Care Consultant
Quality care is person-centered, family-focused, goal concordant, and culturally congruent. The integration of palliative care principles (attention to the physical, psychological, social and spiritual concerns of the patient and family) offers an evidence-informed strategy to achieve the highest level of person-centered care. This “whole-person” perspective allows for the customized individualization of care recommended by regulatory bodies and third party-payers.
Our rapidly evolving healthcare system challenges organizations and programs to quickly adapt to ever-changing consumer and regulatory expectations. Providers benefit from opportunities to consult with specialists to hone their skills to better provide quality care.
Performance needs to be outcome-driven, yet developing quality metrics associated with the delivery of psychosocial-spiritual care is especially challenging. Developing meaningful practice measures that target what matters most requires a team commitment.
Interprofessional education is key to the provision of quality care. Multidimensional sources of distress are best addressed through an interprofessional approach, yet the majority of healthcare providers lack preparation to maximize collaborative practice, minimizing performance and lowering morale.