September 01, 2001

HCECG highlights best medical practices across Georgia

On June 8 the third annual meeting of the Georgia Collaborative to Improve End-of-Life Care, Sustaining the Momentum: Best Practices in Georgia, featured innovative and successful programs that are addressing the needs of patients and their families facing end-of-life care. The keynote address was given by Bud Hammes, PhD, who discussed the remarkable work program focused on community based advance care planning in LaCrosse. (85% of patients who died in hospitals in LaCrosse had completed advance directives (AD), 96% of these patients had AD’s in their patient records, and 98% of the plans were followed. This compares with approximately 15% of patients having AD’s in most other reported studies.)

Throughout the state of Georgia, efforts continue to advance the knowledge and skills of end-of-life care providers. Among the initiatives presented:

  • Ronda Talley, from the Rosalyn Carter Institute for Human Development, reported on “Caring for You, Caring for Me: Education and Support Program for Caregivers,” a program that supports professional and lay caregivers.

  • Sandra Rice, from Hospice Atlanta, presented the Community-based Palliative Care Program, whose objectives are 1) to serve patients who do not meet hospice guidelines but who suffer from symptoms that can be treated with palliative care and 2) to provide end-of-life education to health care professionals.

  • Pam Cowart discussed Piedmont Hospital’s End of Life (EOL) Care Project, initiated to better manage and support the care of the dying patient within a hospital through development of an EOL consult team.

During the day a panel addressed issues of reimbursement concerns in providing end-of-life care. The conference ended with a panel of state leaders in provision of health care who discussed what challenges exist in the state, possible next steps and their own commitment to moving this work forward.

[ Posted by Kathy Kinlaw at September 1, 2001 12:17 PM | More HCECG articles ]

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