National scorecard ranks palliative care across country

In a new state-by-state ranking of palliative care, only Vermont, Montana, and New Hampshire get an A, while Oklahoma, Alabama, and Mississippi get an F. The rest of the states are somewhere in between, although Southern states did not fare well in general. The rankings were conducted by the National Palliative Care Research Center. "We gave letter grades based on the percentage of hospitals that had palliative care programs, appropriately set up to meet the needs of seriously ill patients," said R. Sean Morrison, MD, a professor of geriatrics and palliative care at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York.