What Sickwell is
Living well while seriously ill.
Palliative care is specialized medical care for people with a serious illness. It focuses on relief from symptoms and stress, and on helping you make decisions that fit what matters to you.
It is not hospice, and it does not replace your other doctors. You can have it at any stage of an illness, alongside treatment. Sickwell is being built to offer that care privately, one patient at a time, without a trip to a hospital or clinic.
What care will include
Symptom management
Treatment plans for pain, shortness of breath, nausea, fatigue, anxiety, and the other symptoms that come with serious illness and its treatment.
Advance care planning
Unhurried conversations about what you want from your care, written down so your family and your doctors know.
Understanding what to expect
A clear, honest picture of your illness and where it may be heading, in plain language, at the pace you choose.
Care coordination
Reviewing your records and talking with your oncologist and other specialists so your care pulls in one direction.
Family support
Family meetings in person, by video, or by phone, so the people around you understand the plan and their part in it.
How it will work
Three steps, all from home.
A first conversation
45 minutes · free
We talk by phone or video about what you need and whether Sickwell is the right fit. If it isn't, you will be pointed toward someone who is.
Your first visit
75 minutes
Before we meet, your records are reviewed and your care team is contacted. The visit starts with the symptoms troubling you most.
Ongoing care
As often as you need
Follow-up visits change as your illness changes. Between visits you can call or message directly, with replies planned for 6 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Who you will see
Deja Helm
MSN, AG-ACNP · Palliative medicine nurse practitioner
Deja has spent five years as a palliative medicine nurse practitioner, most of them on the faculty of the palliative care consult service at MedStar Washington Hospital Center, and most recently at PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center in Vancouver, Washington. Before that she was a bone marrow transplant and oncology nurse.
She started Sickwell after seeing how often people with serious illness reach specialty care late, and only inside a hospital.
- Master of Science in Nursing, Georgetown University
- Board certified, Adult-Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner
- Faculty, Hospice and Palliative Medicine fellowship, MedStar Washington Hospital Center
- The DAISY Award for Extraordinary Nursing Faculty
Get in touch
Sickwell is not seeing patients yet.
If you would like to hear when it opens, or you are a clinician who wants to talk about referrals, reach out to Deja directly.
Please do not send medical details by email.