Home | Contact Us | Member Login | News
September 13, 2011 The Nathan Adelson Hospice, of Las Vegas, Nevada, has been chosen as one of Modern Healthcare’s “Best Places to Work in Healthcare” for 2011. More information is provided at the link below. (Modern Healthcare, 8/22, www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20110822/INFO/308229953/modern-healthcares-2011-best-places-to-work-in-healthcare#)
Posted in Hospice News | No Comments »
May 10, 2011 A new, free, online webinar, “Alzheimer’s Disease and Hospice Care,” has been developed by the Hospice Foundation of America. The program “discusses the impact of advanced Alzheimer’s disease, and how family, professionals and volunteers can manage the demands of caring for someone with end-stage dementia.” The webinar “looks at the specialized care and education that hospice offers to persons with Alzheimer’s and their families.” The program will be available at www.hospicefoundation.org/infocenter — click on “Professional Education,” then on “Webinar Series.” (PR Newswire, 5/2, www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/new-hospice-foundation-of-america-program-focuses-on-alzheimers-disease-and-hospice-care-121084299.html)
Posted in Education | No Comments »
January 19, 2011 The Veterans Affairs Department announced that it has improved its online application for health benefits and has plans for future enhancements.
The online Form 10-10EZ now includes a chat function that allows veterans to receive live assistance as they fill out the form. Other improvements include simplified questions regarding military service in the Gulf and Vietnam wars and adjustments that make the application easier and faster for veterans to complete, according to a VA news release.
The application is divided into several categories: personal information, insurance information, employment, military service and a financial assessment. Future improvements will include a health benefits renewal form to update personal information and a special form designed for demobilizing military service members, according to the release.
“VA is committed to tapping into the best that technology has to offer to ensure that veterans receive the benefits they have earned,” Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki said in the release. “We continue to look for new ways to improve access to care and benefits and engage veterans.”
Posted in Hospice News | No Comments »
November 30, 2010 PBS’s new Frontline documentary, “Facing Death: How Far Would You Go to Sustain the Life of Someone You Love, or Your Own?” explores the choices physicians and terminal patients make between more, often painful, treatment, and less, which means a quicker death. The program, which originally aired on November 23, garnered wide media interest.
The New York Times article says, “What makes the film difficult to watch is that the dying people featured are typically middle-aged or young, with every incentive to want to keep going and experimenting.” One physician notes, “Nobody wants to die, and at the same time nobody wants to die badly.” Mount Sinai’s Dr. David Nierman says, “The best thing clearly is to improve quickly and to leave. Although terrible, the second best thing is to die but to die quickly. But the worst thing is to remain in this state of suspended animation, because that can go on for months to years. And what’s so sad about it is that the better we get at practicing critical care, the more of these patients we are creating.”
The PBS link below has the full program in five video chapters, as well as interviews with the physicians in the film, guides to making decisions about various end-of-life issues, facts and figures about where and how we die and the costs of end-of-life care, related readings, and a list of resources for viewers. (The New York Times, 11/22, tv.nytimes.com/2010/11/23/arts/television/23death.html; PBS Website, www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/facing-death/; The Huffington Post, 11/23, www.huffingtonpost.com/barbara-coombs-lee/facing-death-frontline-sh_b_787685.html)
Posted in Hospice News | No Comments »
October 14, 2010 CHAPCA presented two awards during the Annual Conference, held Oct 4-6, 2010 in Las Vegas.
The Pierre Salmon Award recognizes an individual who has made a significant contribution to hospice and palliative care in California or Nevada; promoted the growth and availability of hospice and palliative care; and embodied the core values of hospice. Since its inception, 21 individuals have received this prestigious award.
The 2010 winner was Dr Laurel Herbst, Chief Medical Officer at San Diego Hospice and the Institute of Palliative Medicine.
Dr Herbst came to San Diego Hospice in 1978. At that time, there were only volunteers sitting with seven dying patients . Dr Herbst grew the organization to serving more than 1,000 patients a day, and provided leadership for a world class research institute that actively impacts palliative medicine and patient care.
She has been a palliative medicine physician for 32 years, basically since the beginning of hospice care in the US. She helped shape care which in turn shaped the Medicare Hospice Benefit, and she helped design the inpatient care center at San Diego Hospice in 1991. At that time, it was the only acute care hospice hospital in the US, and still holds that distinction in California.
As President of the Academy of Hospice Physicians, she provided leadership for the development of the hospice and palliative medicine specialty. She has been a sought after mentor and role model for more than 200 medical students, 100 residents and 8-12 Fellows who spend time in the largest training program in the country in palliative medicine.
Early on, Dr Herbst realized the importance of the multidisciplinary team in hospice care. She also recognized the value of family and friends for hospice patients and still teaches others how to tap this rich resource for the patient. Dr. Herbst’s commitment to quality and compassionate care, her dedication to a team approach to pain and symptom management, and her leadership on the integration of emotional and spiritual issues with clinical care were factors in the award decision. Her award was presented by Susan Plummer, CHAPCA’s President.
The Award for Outstanding Program Achievement was created in 2004 to recognize a program or agency that has created and implemented an innovative program in end of life care.
The winner for 2010 was Sarah House, a non-profit end of life care home for low income and homeless in Santa Barbara. Sarah House was founded in 1991 to provide housing and end of life care to low income individuals with HIV/AIDS. In 2004, they successfully sponsored legislation to expand their mission and adapt to the needs of the community by providing beds to low income dying non-HIV individuals. Since 2005, Sarah House has served over 350 people, and in the last 14 months, their 8 bed unit has been full, with a waiting list.
Sarah House is a Social Model of residential care. As such, they focus on four key concepts—a homelike environment, no strict division of labor, cost effectiveness, and compassionate care. The national average bed cost for hospice residence is over $650 a day, while institutional care in the local hospital is well over $3000 a day. Sarah House proves its cost effectiveness with a single bed day cost of $350. Residents pay an average of $17 toward their care. Sarah House enjoys tremendous community support.
Through outreach by Sarah House supporters, the Santa Maria and Thousand Oaks communities have embraced the social model concept and are planning their own hospice residences. Word of Sarah House spread to Eastern Europe, and the national hospice director in Slovenia decided to model their national program on the social model of care. Sarah House envisions the progressive integration of social model care as complementary to the skilled medical model hospice care. Perhaps the most important quality about Sarah House is its heart. It’s a place of sanctuary and warmth for residents, their families and their staff.
Randy Sunday, Sarah House’s Executive Director and Debbie McQuade, the House Manager, accepted the award on behalf of Sarah House. The award was presented by Suzi Johnson, CHAPCA’s Vice President, and Vice President of Sharps HospiceCare, San Diego.
Posted in Annual Conference, Education, Hospice News | No Comments »
September 28, 2010 Disenrollment can have a Physical and Financial Toll
According to a new study, patients with terminal cancer that disenrolled from hospice care had significantly higher rates of hospitalizations – including admission to the emergency department and intensive care unit – than patients who remained under the care of hospice. Furthermore, patients who disenrolled from hospice were more likely to die in the hospital than patients who remained with hospice until their deaths.
The study, which was led by researchers at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, found that:
“Impact of Hospice Disenrollment on Healthcare Use and Medical Expenditures for Patients with Cancer” is published in the October 1, 2010 issue of Journal of Clinical Oncology.
Wrote the study authors, “Policy makers have called for tightening eligibility restrictions for the MHB (Medicare Hospice Benefit) as part of a wider effort to reduce high Medicare expenditures; our results suggest that addressing hospice disenrollment may be an effective means of reducing Medicare expenditures for hospice users without restriction access to the MHB.”
Further recommendations suggest that oncologists explore outpatient palliative care services that offer multidisciplinary care, symptom control, and end-of-life planning expertise in a context that enables a patient and family to maintain contact with the oncology clinic.
Posted in Hospice News | No Comments »
August 19, 2010 A new study released by the New England Journal of Medicine found that among patients with non-small-cell lung cancer, those who received palliative care lived, on average, almost two months longer than those who received standard care. Researchers also found that the patients receiving palliative care reported a higher quality of life through the final course of their illness.
The goals of palliative care are to improve the quality of a seriously ill person’s life and to support that person and their family during and after treatment. Sharing the same philosophy of hospice care which is usually provided in the final months of life, palliative care may be provided at any stage during a serious or life-limiting illness.
Researchers also found that when patients received palliative care services, they were also more likely to elect hospice services.
“With earlier referral to a hospice program, patients may receive care that results in better management of symptoms, leading to stabilization of their condition and prolonged survival,” wrote the authors of the study released Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Posted in Hospice News | No Comments »
May 17, 2010 View our News section for up-to-date information. Do you have information that would be of interest to the hospice community? Please send your news to Susan Negreen at the CHAPCA office.
Posted in Hospice News | No Comments »
May 15, 2010 NHPCO has just issued its position paper on palliative sedation, “National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO) Position Statement and Commentary on the Use of Palliative Sedation in Imminently Dying Terminally Ill Patients.” Available from the website of the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management at the link below, the paper was written by Timothy W. Kirk, PhD, and Margaret M. Mahon, PhD, RN, FAAN, for the Palliative Sedation Task Force of NHPCO’s Ethics Committee.
The paper defines palliative sedation as “the lowering of patient consciousness using medications for the express purpose of limiting patient awareness of suffering that is intractable and intolerable.” NHPCO says that it should be considered “for the limited number of imminently dying patients who have pain and suffering that is (a) unresponsive to other palliative interventions less suppressive of consciousness and (b) intolerable to the patient.”
The statement addresses availability of terminal sedation for the patients defined above, proportionality (titration of the medication to the minimum level needed to relieve suffering), and the need for interdisciplinary evaluation, ongoing education for all involved in administering it, and the distinction between palliative sedation and assisted suicide. The Ethics Committee was unable to reach a consensus on the use of palliative sedation for existential suffering. NHPCO therefore “strongly urges providers to carefully consider this question and supports further ethical discussion. NHPCO also encourages research within and across disciplines to build an evidence base supporting multiple interventions for existential suffering.”
The commentary carefully defines all the terms used in the position statement and discusses each point. It also examines the indications for palliative sedation, and the issues which should be discussed before initiating it – concurrent life-sustaining therapies, artificial nutrition and hydration, the proximity to death, and the level of sedation.
NHPCO recommends regularly reviewing the use of palliative sedation, which should be a formal process. It also recommends “developing and implementing a written institutional policy addressing 1) the criteria and procedure for administrating palliative sedation, 2) the concomitant use of life-sustaining therapies, 3) ongoing education regarding evolving clinical evidence and best practices as well as important ethical distinctions between sedation and assisted suicide or euthanasia, and 4) careful monitoring and collection of data related to institutional practices of palliative sedation.” (Journal of Pain and Symptom Management Website, www.jpsmjournal.com)
Posted in Hospice News | No Comments »
Donate |
Advertise |
Join / Renew Membership |
 |
|
©2012 California Hospice and Palliative Care Association (CHAPCA) |
