BEST in Pediatrics
Children’s Hospice and Palliative Care Coalition, with funding from the California Healthcare Foundation, presents Benefit Education and Strategic Training in Pediatrics or BEST in Pediatrics, an initiative designed to ensure maximum utilization of California’s new Pediatric Palliative Care Benefit, therefore, dramatically increasing access to hospice and palliative care for more than 16,000 critically ill children and their families in the state.
For background on this issue, click here to watch a video narrated by Board President, Melissa Gilbert.
The comprehensive Pediatric Palliative Care Benefit, drafted by California’s Department of Health Care Services, Children’s Medical Services Branch in collaboration with Children’s Hospice and Palliative Care Coalition contains two primary policy components:
(1) a federal hospice eligibility waiver, which will waive hospice eligibility requirements for children and add additional pediatric specific services not currently available under the state plan, and
(2) a series of California Children’s Services Palliative Care Numbered Letters, which define principles of palliative care and guide authorization and payment for existing state plan services.
Learn More
Contact: Gay Walker, RN
Lori Butterworth and Devon Dabbs
Join a Regional Collaborative
Education Partners
End of Life Nursing Education Consortium (ELNEC)
Initiative for Pediatric Palliative Care (IPPC)
Children’s Project on Palliative/Hospice Services (ChIPPS)
In keeping with CHPCC’s mission to improve heath care for critically ill children by addressing systematic barriers, BEST in Pediatrics will prepare families, health care providers and work with California Children’s Services to implement and utilize the new Benefit. The program will target regional waiver pilot sites and will accomplish the following:
Evaluate provider preparedness and capacity for engagement;
Clarify for clinicians, stakeholders, and families the distinction between and proper utilization of the two primary components of the new Pediatric Palliative Care Benefit;
Address the sensitive and complex subject matter of the Benefit through on-site training;
Promote mutual education and communication among waiver pilot site providers;
Facilitate pediatric palliative care training for health providers to enable them to overcome stigma and fear associated with caring for children; and
Establish and promote a professional peer-to-peer mentoring program for professionals providing pediatric palliative care.
BEST in Pediatrics will develop the capacity of waiver pilot site personnel as pediatric palliative clinicians, advisors, advocates, and leaders in their respective health care communities. The program will also ensure that waiver pilot site personnel have the tools they need to communicate effectively with each other across all clinical and administrative settings, resulting in a continuum of care and more effective, appropriate and attentive treatment for children with life-threatening conditions and their families. Finally, BEST in Pediatrics will continue to create a broader awareness about the need for integrated family-centered pediatric palliative care among California clinicians and community-based stakeholders who are in a position to provide timely and appropriate referrals to families for hospice and palliative care from throughout the state. This project is critical to ensuring the success of the Benefit because DHCS’s standard program implementation policies and procedures will not address essential subject matter covered by the program. CHPCC expects that BEST in Pediatrics will have a significant and lasting impact in California on the availability and utilization of pediatric palliative care services for children with life-threatening conditions.