Barbara Rose MPH has devoted her entire career to serving the community in a variety of healthcare settings and is “driven to helping folks be healthier and feel better in the places where they live.” Now, as Senior Administrator, Advanced Illness & Community Programs at HOC Navigators/TriHealth, she leads a number of initiatives dedicated to advanced care planning, palliative, and end-of-life care. She is leading a new initiative to learn from communities of color where “myths and misunderstandings” exacerbate existing disparities and inequities in serious illness and end-of-life care.
C-TAC, she says, “has been a great resource” and support for her work. “Their policy and advocacy focus has been beneficial. I’m always interested in how they distill down what’s going on at the federal and state policy level. We can all benefit from having somebody help us stay on top of the everchanging and much-needed policy.”
Although the field of palliative care has been around for over 20 years, Rose admits that “we are really behind in recognizing how it contributes to helping people feel better and improve quality of life by providing specialty care that fits with what people with serious illness want. The palliative care team, whether in the home, hospital, or clinic setting, she adds, can “make such a difference in people’s experience of serious illness,” by serving all aspects of need–informational, emotional, and physical.
Rose aims to help normalize and communicate what palliative care is and how it benefits patients, families, and communities. Like hospice, good palliative care contributes not just to enhanced quality of life, but to lower hospital and ER utilization rates, which, in turn, significantly reduce healthcare costs overall.
When asked how she would best summarize palliative care, Rose replied: “When I think of the essence of palliative care, The Beatles song, ‘Help.’ comes to mind. If you read the lyrics: ‘Help, I need somebody. Help, not just anybody.’ And for our patients who need help, they just don’t know always know what kind of help they need.” Palliative care is designed to address their suffering by helping them make difficult decisions that honor their wishes and goals.
For C-TAC and its partners, there is only one mission: to serve those impacted by serious illness and improve their care–from diagnosis to end of life. Learn more about our changemakers and how to join us.
