The Harlem Palliative Care Network.

Abstract

The Harlem Palliative Care Network (HPCN) is a collaborative project among three well-established New York City health care institutions: Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, North General Hospital (a community hospital in Harlem), and the Visiting Nurse Service of New York. One of six community-based palliative care programs funded through a grant from the United Hospital Fund of New York, the Harlem Palliative Care Network provides comprehensive and culturally sensitive palliative care services to African Americans and other racial minorities, populations which historically have had difficulty accessing medical services at every stage of life. In this interview, Dr. Richard Payne, who is Director of the Pain and Palliative Care Service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and Terrie Reid Payne, M.A., formerly Program Director of HPCN and now a consultant to the project, describe the project’s goals, how it was developed and operates, and how they hope it will be sustained. The interview was conducted by Innovations Associate Editor Karen S. Heller and is excerpted from the thematic issue “Palliative Care in African American Communities,” Volume 3, Number 5, 2001 of the online journal Innovations in End-of-Life Care at ,www.edc.org/lastacts..