Rural Project Examples: Hospice and palliative care

Evidence-Based Examples

Project ENABLE (Educate, Nurture, Advise, Before Life Ends)

Updated/reviewed February 2024

• Need: To enhance palliative care access to rural patients with advanced cancer or heart failure and their family caregivers.
• Intervention: Project ENABLE consists of: 1) an initial in-person palliative care consultation with a specialty-trained provider and 2) a semi-structured series of weekly, phone-delivered, nurse-led or palliative care coach/navigator sessions designed to help patients and their caregivers enhance their problem-solving, symptom management, and coping skills.
• Results: Patients and caregivers report higher quality of life and lower rates of depression and (caregiver) burden.

Other Project Examples

HopeWest

Updated/reviewed August 2024

• Need: To provide accessible and affordable services to address the challenges associated with aging, serious illness, and grief across rural western Colorado.
• Intervention: A nonprofit, community-sustained healthcare model was created to provide the Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE), hospice care and palliative care, as well as grief support services for individuals of all ages.
• Results: Since 1993, HopeWest has grown to serve more than 3,000 people annually across five counties in western Colorado.

Garrett County Regional Cancer Patient Navigator Program

Updated/reviewed March 2020

• Need: Comprehensive cancer services for residents of an 8-county, 3-state area in Appalachia.
• Intervention: Using a Cancer Patient Navigation Tool Kit, a Maryland acute care facility led a multidisciplinary collaboration that provided the area's patients with expanded cancer treatment services.
• Results: In addition to several new cancer-related programs, expanded services are now available for cancer patients, families, and cancer survivors.