Palliative care focuses on relieving suffering and achieving the best possible quality of life for patients and their family caregivers.  It involves symptom assessment and treatment; aid with decision making and establishing goals of care; practical support for patients and their family caregivers; mobilization of community support and resources to assure a secure and safe living environment; and collaborative and seamless models of care (hospital, home, nursing homes, and hospice). It is offered simultaneously with life prolonging and curative therapies for persons living with serious, complex, and eventually terminal illness.

Palliative care is a healthcare specialty that is both a philosophy of care and an organized, highly structured system for delivering care. Multiple studies have demonstrated that palliative care improves health care quality in three domains: the relief of physical and emotional suffering; improvement and strengthening of the process of patient-physician communication and decision-making; and assurance of coordinated continuity of care across multiple healthcare settings – hospital, home, hospice and long-term care.

At the forefront of patient-centered care, palliative care affirms life by supporting the patient and family's goals for the future, including their hopes for cure or life-prolongation, as well as comfort and control.

Comprehensive palliative care services integrate the expertise of a team of providers from different disciplines in order to adequately assess and address the complex needs of seriously ill patients and their families. Members of a palliative care team typically include professionals from medicine, nursing, and social work, with additional support from chaplaincy, nutrition, rehabilitation, pharmacy, and other professional disciplines as needed.