Endowed Fund for Palliative Care Innovation

Thanks to a generous grant from the Cambia Health Foundation, we have established the Cambia Health Foundation Fund for Innovation in Palliative Care. This fund enables our dedicated team of physicians, chaplains, nurses, and social workers to drive positive change in clinical care, education, and research within the Division of Palliative Medicine (DPM) at UCSF.

Our collaboration aims to revolutionize the care of seriously ill patients and transform the healthcare landscape at UCSF. We believe in making high-quality, scalable palliative care a standard practice not only within UCSF Health but across the entire healthcare system.

This fund supports special projects chosen by DPM's leadership team, in consultation with both internal and external experts, including the Cambia Health Foundation. Projects may receive single or multi-year funding, with a focus on fostering creativity and innovation in all aspects of palliative care, empowering our diverse faculty and staff to lead advancements in the field. Together, we're driving innovation and progress in palliative care.

Current Projects:

Immersive Summer Clinical Experience in Hospice and Palliative Medicine for Premedical Students

Aim: To create a 3.5 week summer clinical shadowing, reflective writing, and didactic program for premedical students under-represented in medicine or from disadvantaged backgrounds

Investigator: Hedieh Matinrad, MD

Palliative Care Group Medical Visit Training Program

Aim: Create a training program to educate and empower palliative care clinicians to conduct group medical visits as a way to increase patient access to palliative care.

Investigators: Stephanie Cheng MD, Neha Goyal, PhD

Group Visits for Patients Living with Dementia

Aim: To improve care of patients living with dementia and their care partners through development of palliative care group visits to promote connection and support for patients and care partners, provide early introduction and connection to specialty palliative care, introduce advance care planning, and discuss how to live with dementia

Investigator: Natalie Young MD

Palliative Care for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis: Understanding Needs and Identifying Opportunities

Aim: To create a suite of multi-site projects to understand the needs of PC & ALS clinicians as well as patients and families facing ALS to provide critical information that will inform the subsequent development of a National Palliative Care for ALS Working Group to broadly improve the quality of and access to PC for people with ALS and their care partners

Investigator: Kara Bischoff, MD

Empowering hospice and palliative care clinicians to provide care that ENCOMPASSes patients with addiction

Aim: To develop educational modules for the ENCOMPASS (Education and Navigating Conversations to Optimize Management of Pain, Addiction, Substance use, and Serious illness) curriculum specifically tailored to HPC clinicians

Investigator: Janet Ho MD, MPH

Previous Projects:

2022

Establishment of an inpatient palliative care pharmacy program at UCSF | PI: Joanna Sharpless, MD

In Pursuit of Equity: Understanding and Mitigating Disparities in Outpatient Palliative Care | PIs: Kara Bischoff, MD & Sarah Nouri MD, MPH

Improving Primary Addiction Medicine Knowledge, Practice, and Attitudes Among Hospice and Palliative Medicine Clinicians | Investigator: Janet Ho MD, MPH

Strengthening the Bridge: Improving Primary & Specialty Palliative Care Services for Patients & Families facing Dementia | Investigator: Natalie Young MD

2021

Increasing Access to Palliative Care and Psycho-oncology through Group Medical Visits (GMVs) | Investigator: Stephanie Cheng MD, Neha Goyal, PhD

Improving Primary Addiction Medicine Knowledge, Practice, and Attitudes Among Hospice and Palliative Medicine Clinicians | Investigator Janet Ho MD, MPH