CHRISTUS Good Shepherd and Texas Palliative Care Partnership to Provide Support for Northeast Texas

Longview, TX, Aug. 22, 2022 – CHRISTUS Good Shepherd and Texas Palliative Care have joined forces to provide personalized and compassionate care for patients living with a serious illness. The partnership, set to begin Aug. 22, will take a multidisciplinary approach to palliative care for patients and their families in the CHRISTUS Good Shepherd Health System.

“This is a service that we are pleased to be able to provide to this community,” said Suhel Patel, M.D., Chief Medical Officer, CHRISTUS Good Shepherd Health System. “Palliative care eases symptoms and side effects, it improves communication between the patient and their medical team, and among the entire medical team, it improves decision making, and, quite simply, it improves the quality of life for patients and their families.”

Palliative care is specialized medical care for people living with a serious illness. This type of care is focused on providing relief from the symptoms and stress of the illness, and the goal is to improve quality of life for both the patient and the family.

“Texas Palliative Care was founded in 2008, as a service of Hospice of East Texas, with the goal of offering Palliative Medicine to East Texas and has grown to include six full-time, board-certified physicians and three full-time, specialty-trained nurse practitioners,” said Laura Ferguson M.D., Texas Palliative Care. “Since its founding, Texas Palliative Care has been a physician driven service with a focus on providing patients and families facing incurable conditions relief from the multiple domains of suffering and to offer the time and support required to understand, process, and help with difficult decision making.”

The program at CHRISTUS Good Shepherd will take a multidisciplinary approach to palliative care in the hospital setting. This will incorporate board-certified physicians, advanced practice providers and nurses offering specialized medical expertise. The team will also include support from the Pastoral Care and Social Work teams, ensuring that patients and family members have access to all the resources and information they may need.

“Not only will this meet the needs of our patients and their families, but this also aligns with our CHRISTUS core values of Dignity, Excellence and Compassion,” said Dr. Patel. “It is truly an opportunity for us to fulfill CHRISTUS’ mission of extending the healing ministry of Jesus Christ.”