Stupski Serious Illness Care Program Evaluation
Project Summary
We aimed to understand the effectiveness of palliative care interventions across multiple grantees funded by the Stupski Foundation’s Serious Illness Care Program, and how varying implementation contexts and intervention components affected the spread and sustainability of improvements. Using mixed methods, our work evaluated how the Foundation’s investments have fostered improvement in the quality of life of seriously ill adults and also promoted understanding of how to spread and sustain those improvements. We simultaneously assessed intervention effectiveness on desired outcomes, while also understanding how effective interventions become embedded and spread in their local context within and across the grantee sites; essentially, we evaluated what works for whom and in what situations.
For any questions or further information related to this evaluation, please contact Laura Holdsworth (l.holdsworth@stanford.edu).
Funding
This evaluation was funded by the Stupski Foundation from 2019 to 2022.
Featured
Publications
1. Mui HZ, Holdsworth LM, Lorenz KA, Winget M. Building a presence: implementation strategies used to expand palliative care services across six diverse health systems in a longitudinal mixed methods study. BMC Palliative Care. Published online April 1, 2026. doi:10.1186/s12904-026-02076-2
2. Singh N, Giannitrapani KF, Gamboa RC, O’Hanlon CE, Fereydooni S, Holdsworth LM, Lindvall C, Walling AM, Lorenz KA. What patients facing cancer and caregivers want from communication in times of crisis: a qualitative study in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Medicine. 2024;41(5):558-567. doi:10.1177/10499091231187351
3. Holdsworth LM, Mui HZ, Winget M, Lorenz KA. “Never waste a good crisis”: A qualitative study of the impact of COVID-19 on palliative care in seven hospitals using the Dynamic Sustainability Framework. Palliative Medicine. 2022;36(10):1544-1551. doi:10.1177/02692163221123966
