A palliative care social worker visits with an elderly patient at his home.

Palliative Care

Contact Us

812-376-5610

2400 E. 17th St.
Columbus IN

Patient Portal Get Directions Contact Us Online Donate

Overview

Palliative care is a medical specialty that focuses on relieving pain, symptoms and the stress of serious illness. This service is provided by Our Hospice of South Central Indiana through an endowment fund managed by the Columbus Regional Health Foundation.

It’s available at any age, at any stage, and it often takes place over an extended period of time.

Palliative care begins at the time of diagnosis and can be provided with or without curative treatment for patients with serious illness.

In fact, palliative care teams are valuable resources in helping families make these difficult decisions regarding treatments and care.

Whenever and however it’s administered, the goal of palliative care is to provide the highest quality of life possible for both patients and their families.

Palliative Care is:

  • Specialized care for people with serious illness
  • Focused on providing patients with relief from the symptoms, pain and stress of a serious illness—whatever the diagnosis and can be provided along with curative treatments
  • Goal is to improve quality of life for both the patient and the family
  • Team of doctors, nurses, social workers, chaplains and other specialists who work with patient’s other doctors to coordinate and provide an extra layer of support.

When people are facing a serious or life-limiting illness, they’re also facing difficult decisions about how to manage the symptoms that can come with it. Thankfully, palliative care specializes in doing just that.

Patients with a serious illness such as:

  • Cancer
  • Heart disease/ heart failure
  • COPD / Pulmonary disease
  • Advanced Renal disease
  • Advanced Hepatic disease
  • Dementia
  • Stroke
  • ALS
  • Patients experiencing high symptom burden and/or unmet physical needs related to the serious illness or treatment of the serious illness
  • Patients needing a comprehensive discussion of end-of-life issues related to life-limiting prognosis and assistance to determine goals of care
  • Patients with unmet psychosocial needs, lack of caregiving help and support at home, in need of referrals to additional care providers and awareness of community resources
  • Patients with unmet spiritual needs

The Palliative Care team, consisting of specially trained Physicians, Nurse Practitioners, RN Case Managers, Social Workers and Chaplains, will partner with your primary care or other physician to help coordinate your care, and provide an extra layer of support for you and your family. The Palliative Care team will act as an expert consultant to you and your physician in management of pain, disease symptoms and treatment side effects. Our goal is to assist you in preventing and/or reducing unplanned hospitalizations while maintaining your independence and keeping you comfortable at home. Our Palliative Care team can assist you with establishing your goals of care and advanced directives and finding community services.

The Palliative Care team can assist with:

  • Difficult treatment decisions
  • Pain and distress
  • Depression and anxiety
  • Emotional and Spiritual concerns
  • Grief and loss
  • Caregiver stress
  • Access to Community Resources
  • Advanced Care Planning
  • Palliative care is delivered in our outpatient clinic, in your home or in the hospital setting.

Your support will ensure palliative care services for patients and families is sustained long-term by providing resources for care that is not reimbursed and requires philanthropy. The physician consult for palliative care is the only part of the care that is currently reimbursed by insurance, Medicare or Medicaid. Neither the work of the multidisciplinary team that includes nurses, social workers and support staff, nor the physical location or equipment necessary are reimbursed.

Please consider a gift in support of this important new service. There are many ways to give that offer financial benefits. Contact Ellen Brunner at 812-314-8166 or email [email protected].

Charitable contributions make Palliative Care services possible. Visit Our Hospice - Donate if you would like to support Palliative Care.

About Us

In March, 2018, Ruth, Jenny, Rick and Alice Johnson provided a transformative gift to launch and sustain a palliative support service to be started by Our Hospice of South Central Indiana.

Ruth Johnson commented, “Our Hospice has a long history of doing a lot of good for many people as they provide care during a very significant part of people’s lives, and it is a strong organization that will be here for generations to come.

We are happy to support the community through our commitment to Our Hospice.”

Palliative Care began accepting patients in June of 2019 after extensive planning.

In July, 2020, in memory of her parents, Kirby and Caroline Risk, Sherry Risk Stark made a transformational gift, the largest gift received by Our Hospice of South Central Indiana, to establish an endowment fund in memory of her parents.

The James Kirby Risk and Caroline Robinson Risk Fund for Palliative Care will provide sustaining support to Our Hospice of South Central Indiana for palliative care services, an innovative patient care model that provides demonstrated improvement to patients enduring a chronic illness.

Today, Palliative Care is provided at home, at our Outpatient Clinic and during inpatient stays at Columbus Regional Hospital with the service provided by Our Hospice of South Central Indiana.

Additional Info

Questions And Answers

Palliative Care Team

The Palliative Care team, consisting of specially trained Physicians, Nurse Practitioners, RN Case Managers, Social Workers, and Chaplains, will partner with your primary care physician to help coordinate your care, and provide an extra layer of support for you and your family.

Dr. Leigh Anderson portrait. 
Leigh Anderson, MDview profile
Donna Butler portrait. 
Donna Butler, MSNview profile
Anita Collins NP portrait. 
Anita Collins, NPview profile