AAHPM Position Statements are expert‑developed, official statements that outline the Academy’s stance on important professional, ethical, and policy issues in serious illness care.
Created through a transparent, evidence‑based process, they are designed to educate the public, guide health policy, encourage consensus, and support access to high‑quality serious illness care. These statements reflect both scientific rigor and the diverse expertise of AAHPM’s membership.
AAHPM Position Statements
The AAHPM Board of Directors has approved the following Position Statements to raise awareness and clearly express the Academy’s perspectives on key issues in hospice and palliative medicine. These statements reflect expert consensus and are intended to inform clinical practice, policy discussions, and public understanding.
We encourage members and stakeholders to review and share these Position Statements with colleagues and partners.
Access to Palliative Care and Hospice
Access to palliative care and hospice remains uneven and inadequate across the United States, reflecting broader challenges in access to health care. Even when services are available, referrals may be delayed or declined due to misconceptions that associate palliative care and hospice with death or the abandonment of life‑prolonging treatment.
Aligning Graduate Medical Education with the Changing Health Care Landscape
AAHPM supports strengthening the health care workforce by expanding palliative care training to better meet the needs of patients with serious illness and multiple chronic conditions. A significant gap remains between the number of clinicians trained in palliative care and the growing demand for these services. Reforming graduate medical education to support Hospice and Palliative Medicine fellowship training is essential to improving care quality, reducing unnecessary utilization, and advancing the triple aim of health care reform.
Artificial Nutrition and Hydration Near the End of Life
Artificial nutrition and hydration (ANH) were originally developed to provide short-term support for patients who were acutely ill. For patients near the end of life, ANH is unlikely to prolong life and can potentially lead to medical complications and increase suffering.
Palliative Care Research
Many palliative care decisions and interventions lack sufficient evidence to either recommend or not recommend. Much remains to be learned that could improve care of these patients, and further research in this field is needed. Debate exists about whether patients with serious illness should be asked to participate in research.
Palliative Sedation
Palliative care supports patients whose diseases are associated with significant burden. Distressing symptoms exist on a spectrum from the most easily treated to the most refractory. Although preservation of awareness at the end of life is viewed as a priority for many, for some, the relief of symptoms may outweigh the desire to be conscious.
Physician-Assisted Dying
Suffering near the end of life arises from many sources including loss of sense of self, loss of control, fear of the future, and/or fear of being a burden upon others, as well as refractory physical and non-physical symptoms. Excellent medical care, including state-of-the art palliative care, can address and help alleviate many sources of suffering. On occasion, however, patients seek the assistance of a physician to end their life.
Advisory Brief: Guidance on Responding on Requests for Physician-Assisted Dying
Physician-Assisted Dying (PAD) is defined as a physician providing, at the patient’s request, a prescription for a lethal dose of medication that the patient can self-administer by ingestion, with the explicit intention of ending life. Although PAD has historically not been within the domain of standard medical practice, in recent years it has emerged as both an explicit and covert practice across various legal jurisdictions in the United States.
Withholding and Withdrawing Nonbeneficial Medical Interventions
Palliative care seeks to relieve suffering associated with life-limiting illness. As illness progresses, there also may be times when the burdens of medical interventions outweigh their benefits, when the intervention is nonbeneficial, or when its use is inconsistent with the patient’s goals.