Palliative care is a relatively young field born out of a need to address suffering in patients with serious illness at end of life. A substantial number of these patients receive the complex care associated with the end of life at tertiary medical centers, hence the development of clinical and training programs in palliative care at these centers. Demand for palliative care extends beyond these centers, however, the response has not met the demand.

Palliative care is not uniformly available to patients within the USA and across the world. The majority of palliative care encounters occur in tertiary medical centers (often academic) and are usually dependent on referrals by clinicians, often associated with similar medical centers. Ideal practice would extend access to all patients with serious life-threatening illness regardless of their location or their primary provider's practice site. As such, there is a need to raise awareness of attendees of the current state, the gaps present, and opportunities to address these gaps. This can be accomplished via the expansion of access by various means, including expanding the pool of providers, providing platforms to enable patients regardless of their location connect with trained providers, locating palliative care in communities where patients are present.