Christine Hallman DNP, APRN, ACHPN, NP-C

I am an Advanced Certified Hospice and Palliative Nurse and I work as the nurse practitioner for the PATCH (palliative care telehealth program) for MedStar Washington Hospital Center. I have an extensive background in the discipline of palliative care which includes both clinical and non-clinical experience.

Prior to entering nursing school, I worked closely with organizational and department leadership along with community-based palliative care clinicians in an effort to bring palliative care services into the MedStar Health’s Washington Cancer Institute. This included providing education about palliative care and supportive care services to clinical and ancillary staff along with patients and families. As a palliative care patient liaison at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation my efforts were focused on patient and family advocacy along with department quality and process improvement projects.

My clinical experience in palliative care spans the care spectrum. I started my clinical work as a nurse practitioner caring for patients in the underserved and rural communities of Middle Tennessee. It was through this experience that I first became aware of how race and social determinates of health can affect access to care and negatively impact health outcomes. I have also worked as a nurse practitioner at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation where my experience included work in both the acute and ambulatory settings. In addition to also having experience as a primary care provider in internal medicine, I have also worked as a nurse practitioner for the Cleveland Clinic Foundation Heart and Vascular Institute in the ambulatory heart failure clinics and most recently work in the telemedicine space as a palliative care nurse practitioner for MedStar Washington Hospital Center.

My experiences in working with underserved and racially diverse populations within the disciplines of palliative care and heart failure and often witnessing how patients felt as though they were not in control of their care was the motivation behind my Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) scholarly project aimed at increasing goals of care conversations in patients living with heart failure. The project helped to facilitate and normalize difficult conversations between heart failure providers and patients living with heart failure; allowing patients’ voices to be heard and wishes considered when developing a plan of care.