About the Palliative Care Medicine Program
Founded in 2007, the Johns Hopkins Hospital Adult Palliative care medicine program provides compassionate, supportive care for patients and families receiving treatment at Johns Hopkins. The palliative care medicine program provides care for patients throughout the entire Johns Hopkins Hospital - including intensive care units, medicine and surgical floors, the Weinberg Cancer Pavilion, the Johns Hopkins Children's Center and the emergency department, as well as the Levi Watkins, Jr, MD, Outpatient Center and the Skip Viragh Outpatient Cancer Building.
Our team of experts supports patients and families throughout their journey with serious illness. Our team takes the time to provide personalized medical care to meet individual patient’s and family’s needs, by understanding their healthcare concerns, lifestyle, values and preferences. Through this in-depth understanding of you as the patient, we help match treatment options to your goals and values. We also provide assistance managing difficult symptoms, can offer suggestions of ways to improve quality of life, and our team also can provide support and guidance to family and friends in their roles as supports and caregivers, sharing in the illness journey.
Communication — the cornerstone of palliative care medicine — is key to superb care. The team will help you feel comfortable speaking to your doctors, nurses, family members and other important people in your life.
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Patient Services
How Can We Help?
Being diagnosed with a serious illness can affect every aspect of life, both for patients and the people that love them.
The primary goal of our program is to ensure that patients dealing with complex illnesses are as free as possible of symptoms and can maintain their physical, mental and emotional well-being to the fullest; we want our patients to have quality of life and be able to continue doing the things that they love.
Palliative care medicine support may look different for different people depending on the situation. Working in partnership with a patient’s primary physician or medical team, we will meet with you and your family to discuss options to enhance your care to suit your unique needs. The palliative care medicine team provides:
- Expert treatment of pain and other symptoms
- Communication and care coordination
- Help navigating the health care system
- Guidance with difficult decisions and complex information
- Advance care planning and advance directive preferences
- Emotional and spiritual support for the patient and family
Whether you need assistance managing physical pain, gaining relief from emotional distress, or want better communication among family members, and your healthcare providers, the palliative care medicine team can help.
Who Will Be Involved in my Care?
Palliative care medicine experts will work alongside the other members of your care team to support you and your family through the management of your serious illness. Your team members can include a palliative care doctor, palliative care nurse or advance practice provider (such as a nurse practitioner or physicians assistant), social worker, chaplain, pharmacist and others in addition to your primary care team.
To make an appointment, please call 410-614-9892
You or your healthcare provider can call our clinic at 410-955-8307 for more information.
Pediatric Palliative Care
The Pediatric Palliative Care program specializes in the care of children with life-limiting or terminal conditions and their families.
Our goal is to achieve the best possible quality of life for the child and family, and to support the child and family through their illness. Our services include pain and symptom control, psychosocial and spiritual support, advance care planning and bereavement support. We provide care in the inpatient setting and in our outpatient clinic.
For more information about the supportive services offered by Pediatric Palliative Care, please contact a member of the team at 410-614-4750.