PoPCRN Team Changes
Jenny Vancura will be leaving the University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine this April as her husband is pursuing a PhD in Religious Studies/ American Religious History this Fall at FSU, in Tallahassee. She managed to sell her Capitol Hill townhome despite the crumbling real estate market. Should she 'risk it' again and purchase a home in Florida?
Click Here to cast your vote
We will send an email with information (and post on the website) new PoPCRN staff contact information in the near future.
Patients and Families Consider Palliative Care- By Katy Human
The Denver Post reports on the fidings of a Kaiser-based clinical trial examining the medical and economic merits of palliative care. To read the article featuring PoPCRN's own Jean Kutner, MD, MSPH, and Daniel Johnson, MD, click here
Nursing homes are the site of death for 40% of Americans and many nursing home residents have life-threatening illness associated with physical, psychosocial and spiritual pain. Clearly, palliative care can play an important role in the prevention and relief of suffering among nursing home residents.
The Making Advance Planning a Priority Care Program (MAPP) was designed to assist nursing home staff clarify resident care goals and identify nursing home residents who may benefit from palliative and/or hospice care. This program consists of: 1) establishing the palliative care goals of the facility, 2) articulating the care goals of residents, 3) understanding the goals of the clinicians, 4) collaborating with palliative care and hospice programs and 5) empowering staff to provide palliative care.
MAPP was successfully implemented in a Denver nursing home. After creating a program website, program materials were downloaded in 200 nursing homes nationwide. Nursing homes which downloaded the program materials will be contacted in a few months for follow-up information on the program's success.
More information? Visit www.uchsc.edu/palliativecare.
Questions? Contact: Cari Levy, MD.
We want to thank all of the participating hospices for their help and enthusiasm thus far in our goal to further the available information on the use of CAM (complementary and alternative medicine) in hospice situations. We are interested in obtaining more data in regards to Hospice facilities’ attitudes and use of different CAM therapies and modalities. We would greatly appreciate your continued support.
We will be sending out a survey in late June of 2008 that will be assessing use of and attitudes about CAM therapies in the hospice setting. This survey will come to you in the form of an email that will lead to an Internet survey. Our goal is to have one MD and the nurse manager from each site to complete the survey in order to assess any variations in thoughts towards CAM that may exist within a single hospice setting.
Thank you again, in advance, for your continued support of our efforts to build further understanding of the role of CAM in hospice.
Questions?
Contact:
Elizabeth Wilson MSIII
Elizabeth.Wilson@uchsc.edu
3033493737 cell
SupportTECH: Support by Telephone for Caregivers in Hospice
Principal Investigator: Kristin Kilbourn, PhD, Psychology Department, UC Denver
Co-Investigator: Jean Kutner, MD, MSPH, Division of General Internal Medicine, University of Colorado School of Medicine
This has been an exciting year for the SupportTECH Project. After months of hard work and preparation, the telephone-based counseling intervention program for caregivers is in full swing, with 5 caregivers enrolled in the program. The following hospice sites are participating in the study and we are excited to have them on board:
Capital Hospice, Falls Church, VA
Hospice of Saint John, Lakewood, CO
San Diego Hospice & Palliative Care, San Diego, CA
Hospice of Michigan, Detroit, MI
Hospice of Montezuma, Cortez, CO
Roaring Fork Hospice, Glenwood Springs, CO
Rice Hospice, Wilmar, MN
Caregivers of home-based hospice patients experience multiple stressors, including managing the physical and emotional needs of their loved one, dealing with uncertainty about the disease process, and communicating with health care workers and family members. Caregivers often face an interruption of life tasks and goals, financial difficulties, and work-related disruptions and negative social consequences. The SupportTECH counseling program is designed to address these issues. The study utilizes counselor-initiated telephone calls addressing standardized topics targeted to caregivers at strategic points during the course of hospice care. At the project's end, researchers will understand the feasibility of a new and innovative counseling intervention to improve psychosocial functioning and quality of life among caregivers of cancer patients enrolled in home-based hospice care.
For questions, please contact:
Kristin Kilbourn, Principal Investigator, kristin.kilbourn@cudenver.edu, or
Allison Costenaro, Project Manager, allison.costenaro@uchsc.edu
Revocation of the hospice benefit is a common occurrence. One of the PoPCRN sites is interested in learning more about why revocation occurs. Please take a moment to follow the link below to answer some questions about revocation in your own organization:
Click here to take survey. Survey results will be posted on the PoPCRN website--stay tuned!
Please inform your hospice’s social workers of this study and the opportunity to contribute to research aimed at improving social work effectiveness in the hospice setting. For questions, please contact Dr. Debra Parker Oliver, at oliverdr@health.missouri.edu or Karla Washington at washingtonkt@missouri.edu.
Survey of Hospice Social Workers
During the months of April and May, a statewide online survey will be conducted in Colorado and Wisconsin targeting social workers who work in hospice care settings. Social workers in Colorado will be invited to participate through an email sent to representative members of the Colorado Center for Hospice & Palliative Care and The Population-based Palliative Care Research Network (PoPCRN).
The overall goal of this research is to improve the quality of life of terminally ill patients and their families by learning from the social workers who serve them. While some questions specifically ask about rural end-of-life care, all hospice social workers are invited to complete this survey.
If you are a social worker please inquire with your hospice and palliative care organization about the survey. If you are not a social worker feel free to pass along information about this opportunity to hospice social workers at your organization.
The survey is being conducted by Amy Boelk, APSW who is an Associate Professor and Field Coordinator at University of Wisconsin- Steven’s Point, and Jessica Haxton, LCSW who is a PhD Candidate and Adjunct Faculty at The University of Denver, Graduate School of Social Work. Please contact Jessica Haxton at jhaxton@du.edu with further questions.
160 Nurses, social workers, chaplains, and hospice administrators from hospice organizations around the country completed a survey measuring telehospice and videophone technology acceptance in the hospice setting.
Please click here to view abstract.
Questions?
Contact: Karla Washington, MSW, LCSW
Kutner, JS. Assuring quality end-of-life care – imperative to grow the evidence base in concert with growth of the field. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. 2007. 56(1):160-162.
Fischer SM, Sauaia A, Kutner JS. Patient Navigation: A Culturally Competent Strategy to Address Disparities in Palliative Care. Journal of Palliative Medicine. 2007. 10(5):1023-1028.
Smith, MC, Kutner JS, Hemphill, L, Yamashita T, Felton S. Developing Control and Treatment Conditions in a Clinical Trial of Massage Therapy for Advanced Cancer. Journal of the Society of Integrative Oncology. 2007. 5(4):139-146.
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Bekelman DB, Hutt E, Masoudi FE, Kutner JS, Rumsfeld JS. Defining the Role of Palliative Care in Older Adults with Heart Failure. International Journal of Cardiology. 2008. 125:183-190
Bekelman DB, Havranek EP. Palliative care for patients with acute decompensated heart failure: an underused service? Nat Clin Pract Cardiovasc Med 2008 Feb 19; [Epub ahead of print].
Levy C. Letting Goals be Your Guide: A program to make advance planning and palliative care a priority in nursing homes. Annals of Long Term Care. 2008. 16(1):34-37.
Levy C, Corrigan M, Kramer A. Improving End-of-life Outcomes in Nursing Homes by Targeting Residents at High-Risk of Mortality for Palliative Care: Program Description and Evaluation. J Palliative Medicine. March 2008. 11(2): 217-225.
Levy C. Partnering nursing homes and palliative care specialists. Long Term Care Interface. November/December 2007. 8(6): 26-31.