Advocacy Update

Report Examines State Efforts to Improve Palliative Care Access and Quality

Jacqueline M. Kocinski, MPP

Divided government and gridlock in Washington, DC, can mean efforts to effect policy change at the federal level require much patience. In contrast, state-level policymaking can advance at a more rapid pace and more easily allows for innovation. As a result, for better or worse, polices that impact patients with serious illness and the health professionals who care for them increasingly are being decided on the state level through laws and regulations on issues from pain care and prescribing to end-of-life decision making, scope of practice, and telehealth.