Summa’s Palliative Care and Hospice Services received the Circle of Life Award® Citation of Honor for its innovation in improving the care of patients near the end of life or with life-threatening conditions. As one of eight organizations honored this year by the Circle of Life Award Program, Summa was recognized for its research, achievements in medical education and work with long-term care facilities.
About the Circle of Life Award
The American Hospital Association Circle of Life Award honors organizations or groups that provide palliative or end-of-life care programs. The programs exemplify:
- are striving to equitably provide effective, patient-centered, timely, safe, and efficient palliative and end-of-life care
- are striving to implement the domains of the National Consensus Project Clinical Practice Guidelines for Quality Palliative Care and the corresponding preferred practices identified by the National Quality Forum
- show innovation and serve as models for the field particularly in moving palliative care upstream
- support hospitals' and health organizations' efforts to improve palliative and end-of-life care
- build awareness of the importance of serving people with life-limiting illnesses throughout the continuum of their illness and supporting those close to them
- are actively working with other health care organizations and the community across the continuum of care
