News and Media
(Please Note: These links are not necessarily on the Mass.Gov Portal)

  • A Life Worth Ending; The era of medical miracles has created a new phase of aging, as far from living as it is from dying. A son’s plea to let his mother go.
    By Michael Wolff, New York Magazine, May, 2012
    http://nymag.com/print/?/news/features/parent-health-care-2012-5/
    ...In 1990, there were slightly more than 3 million Americans over the age of 85. Now there are almost 6 million. By 2050 there will be 19 million—approaching 5 percent of the population. There are various ways to look at this. If you are responsible for governmental budgets, it's a knotty policy issue. If you are in marketing, it suggests new opportunities (and not just Depends). If you are my age, it seems amazingly optimistic. Age is one of the great modern adventures, a technological marvel—we're given several more youthful-ish decades if we take care of ourselves. Almost nobody, at least openly, sees this for its ultimate, dismaying, unintended consequence: By promoting longevity and technologically inhibiting death, we have created a new biological status held by an ever-growing part of the nation, a no-exit state that persists longer and longer, one that is nearly as remote from life as death, but which, unlike death, requires vast service, indentured servitude really, and resources.

  • End-of-life uncertainty; Americans need to be more assertive in detailing the medical treatment they want as they age.
    Opinion, The Los Angeles Times, Monday, November 29, 2010
    http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-endoflife-20101129,0,508408,print.story
    Americans have a near obsessive interest in death and dying. Today's most popular television series is about violent crime investigators. The biggest movie of the year is likely to be " Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1." The bestseller list is packed with crime novels. And the latest hit video game revolves around Cold War assassins. And yet, Americans also are notoriously reluctant to confront the realities of death itself. In particular, how is it that so few people have taken steps to ensure that their wishes will be respected if they're too sick or injured to speak for themselves?
     

  • Geography a key to cancer patients' last days; Use of hospice, aggressive care varies by region
    By Rob Stein, Washington Post via The Boston Globe, Wednesday, November 17, 2010
    http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2010/11/17/cancer_patients_die_too_often_in_hospitals_study_says/
    WASHINGTON - The proportion of cancer patients who die in the hospital and get hospice care varies widely from region to region and hospital to hospital across the country, according to a new report. Researchers at the Dartmouth Atlas Project in Lebanon, N.H., analyzed the records of 235,821 Medicare patients ages 65 and older who died between 2003 and 2007. Overall, the researchers found that one-third of patients spent their last days in hospitals and intensive-care units. But there was a big range. At one end was Manhattan, where 46.7 percent died in the hospital. In contrast, 7 percent of cancer patients died in the hospital in Mason City, Iowa. While chemotherapy and other aggressive procedures can prolong life and enable some cancer patients to return home and to work, studies have shown that these treatments have little or no value for frail elderly patients and those with advanced cancer. But 6 percent of patients received chemotherapy in their last two weeks of life, and the rate was much higher - more than 10 percent - in some places, the researchers found.
     

  • Study examines end-of-life care for cancer patients;
    Many in their final days receive costly, aggressive treatments they may not want, according to researchers at the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care. In California, Los Angeles County had the highest percentage of patients dying in hospitals.
    By Molly Hennessy-Fiske, The Los Angeles Times, Wednesday, November 17, 2010
    http://www.latimes.com/health/la-me-cancer-care-20101117,0,2543030.story
    One in three patients with advanced cancer spend their final days in hospitals receiving costly, aggressive treatments they may not want, according to a major national study released Tuesday.
     

  • End-of-life care costs continue to climb upward
    Reuters Health, Thursday October 14, 2010
    http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE69C3KY20101014
    NEW YORK - Health care costs at the end of life show no signs of leveling off, according to new research from the United States and Canada published in the Archives of Internal Medicine. But other trends over the past decade, including a sharp increase in use of hospice services, could point the way toward bringing these costs down while improving patient care, Dr. Jonathan Bergman of the University of California in Los Angeles, author of one of the studies, told Reuters Health...
     

  • New impetus for palliative care
    END-OF-LIFE ISSUES, BOSTON GLOBE EDITORIAL, Wednesday, September 1, 2010
    http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2010/09/01/new_impetus_for_palliative_care/
    ALL TOO often, patients with terminal illnesses turn to the pain medication and counseling of palliative care only after enduring wrenching treatments that have little chance of extending their lives. But what if palliative care began immediately after the diagnosis and while the disease is still being treated? The answer, according to a study at Massachusetts General Hospital, is that patients treated this way enjoy a higher quality of life and live longer. In addition, they are more likely than patients not receiving palliative care to forgo 11th hour therapies...
     

  • Frank Talk About Care at Life's End
    By JANE E. BRODY, The New York Times, Tuesday, August 24, 2010
    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/24/health/24brod.html
    Legislators have begun to recognize the medical, humanitarian and economic value of helping terminally ill patients and their families navigate treatment options as they approach the end of life. Last week, over the objections of New York State's medical society, Gov. David A. Paterson signed into law a bill - the New York Palliative Care Information Act - requiring physicians who treat patients with a terminal illness or condition to offer them or their representatives information about prognosis and options for end-of-life care, including aggressive pain management and hospice care as well as the possibilities for further life-sustaining treatment. The Medical Society of the State of New York objected, saying that the new law would intrude "unnecessarily upon the physician-patient relationship" and mandate "a legislatively designed standard of care." A similar provision in the original federal health care overhaul proposal, which would have reimbursed doctors for the time it takes to have such conversations, was withdrawn when it was erroneously labeled by conservatives as a "death panel" option. Also last week, a study in The New England Journal of Medicine reported that among 151 patients with newly diagnosed metastatic lung cancer, those who received palliative care, which is care focused on symptoms, along with standard cancer therapy had a better quality of life, experienced less depression, were less likely to receive aggressive end-of-life care and lived nearly three months longer than those who received cancer treatment alone...
     

  • Palliative Care Extends Life, Study Finds
    By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr., The New York Times, Thursday, August 19, 2010
    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/19/health/19care.html
    In a study that sheds new light on the effects of end-of-life care, doctors have found that patients with terminal lung cancer who began receiving palliative care immediately upon diagnosis not only were happier, more mobile and in less pain as the end neared - but they also lived nearly three months longer. The findings, published online Wednesday by The New England Journal of Medicine, confirmed what palliative care specialists had long suspected. The study also, experts said, cast doubt on the decision to strike end-of-life provisions from the health care overhaul passed last year.
    See also:
    Cancer strategy - Easing the burden; Study shows patients who start palliative care early live longer
    By Stephen Smith, Boston Globe Staff | Thursday, August 19, 2010
    http://www.boston.com/news/health/articles/2010/08/19/study_shows_cancer_patients_who_start_palliative_care_early_live_longer/
     

  • Letting Go; What should medicine do when it can't save your life?
    by Atul Gawande, The New Yorker, August 2, 2010
    http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/02/100802fa_fact_gawande?currentPage=all
    Modern medicine is good at staving off death with aggressive interventions - and bad at knowing when to focus, instead, on improving the days that terminal patients have left.
     

  • Advance Directives Again Shown Useful for End-of-Life Care 
     By Crystal Phend, Senior Staff Writer, MedPage Today, April 1, 2010
    - Reviewed by Dori F. Zaleznik, MD; Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston and Dorothy Caputo, MA, RN, BC-ADM, CDE, Nurse Planner
    Many older adults completed advance directives by the time they were needed, and they did their job -- ensuring that patients got the care they wanted, researchers found. In a nationally-representative study, 67.6% of those ages 60 and older who lacked the capacity to make required decisions at the time of death had established an advance directive, according to a report in the April 1st New England Journal of Medicine.
     

  • Health Care Costs in the Last Week of Life; Associations With End-of-Life Conversations
    Archives of Internal Medicine
    Life-sustaining medical care of patients with advanced cancer at the end of life (EOL) is costly. Patient-physician discussions about EOL wishes are associated with lower rates of intensive interventions. This study concludes that patients with advanced cancer who reported having EOL conversations with physicians had significantly lower health care costs in their final week of life. Higher costs were associated with worse quality of death.
     

  • Creating a Palliative Care Program: Insights from Hospital Leaders
    California HealthCare Foundation | February 2010
    Palliative care programs provide a number of benefits to hospitals and clinicians caring for patients with life-threatening or serious chronic illness. Among 325 California hospitals responding to a 2008 survey, 43% have palliative care programs. The California HealthCare Foundation (CHCF) spoke with administrative and medical leaders from various types of hospitals across the state to gain insights into how these programs are set up, what the benefits and challenges are, and how clinical staff respond to them. Brief case studies lay out the basics for each program, and a resources section provides links to publications and organizations focused on palliative care.
     

  • Facing End-of-Life Talks, Doctors Choose to Wait 
     By Denise Grady, The New York Times, Tuesday, January 12, 2010
    It's a conversation that most people dread, doctors and patients alike. The cancer is terminal, time is short, and tough decisions loom - about accepting treatment or rejecting it, and choosing where and how to die. When is the right time -if there is one -to bring up these painful issues with someone who is terminally ill?
     

  • Medicare Billing Update: As of January, 1, 2010. Medicare no longer recognizes certain consultations for billing. This system has been replaced by a system of categories based on level of care and timing. This Medicare coding change is an important development for palliative care for Medicare patients. For more information, please the Center to Advance Palliative Care website at http://www.capc.org/tools-for-palliative-care-programs/billing/2010-cms-billing-changes/quick-facts-2010-cms.pdf.

    For further information on Medicare services, please see The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services website at http://www.cms.hhs.gov/ and/or Pub 100-4 Medicare Claims Processing (Transmittal 1875).

  • Months to Live - Hard Choice for a Comfortable Death: Sedation
    By ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS, The New York Times, Sunday, December 27, 2009
    While the national health coverage debate has been roiled by questions of whether the government should be paying for end-of-life counseling, physicians like Dr. Halbridge, in consultations with patients or their families, are routinely making tough decisions about the best way to die.
     

  • Weighing Medical Costs of End-of-Life Care
    By REED ABELSON, The New York Times, Tuesday, December 22, 2009
    LOS ANGELES - The Ronald Reagan U.C.L.A. Medical Center, one of the nation's most highly regarded academic hospitals, has earned a reputation as a place where doctors will go to virtually any length and expense to try to save a patient's life....
     

  • Videos may aid end-of-life care decisions
    Amy Norton, Reuters Health, Thursday, December 17th, 2009
    NEW YORK - Videos that depict different options for end-of-life care may help terminally ill cancer patients decide on what they want, a new study suggests. Research shows that only a minority of cancer patients complete documents on advance care planning -- and that even when doctors and patients have discussions on end-of-life care, poor communication and patients' lack of medical knowledge remain significant obstacles.
     

  • Is More Care Better? The Evidence Suggests No
    by Jonathan Skinner Jonathan Skinner and Shannon Brownlee, Health Affairs, December 10, 2009
    Is more care better? Three decades of research at Dartmouth suggests that on average the answer is no. Now a newer paper, published in the journal Circulation, Cadiovascular Quality and Outcomes, has garnered a lot of press and has been portrayed as the "anti-Dartmouth study" in at least one article.
     

  • Docs Feel Stress When Patients Can't Make Own Decisions
    By John Gever, Senior Editor, MedPage Today 
     More than 20% of surveyed physicians said they felt "a great deal of stress" when they had to consult with a patient's surrogate on a major medical decision. Factors including difficulty contacting the surrogate and lack of prior discussion with the patient about his or her wishes contributed to increased stress, reported Alexia Torke, MD, of Indiana University in Indianapolis, and colleagues. 
     

  • The Cost of Dying - Patients' Last Two Months of Life Cost Medicare $50 Billion Last Year; Is There a Better Way?
    CBS News, 60 Minutes, originally aired on Sunday, November 22, 2009
    Every medical study ever conducted has concluded that 100 percent of all Americans will eventually die. This comes as no great surprise, but the amount of money being spent at the very end of people's lives probably will. Last year, Medicare paid $50 billion just for doctor and hospital bills during the last two months of patients' lives - that's more than the budget of the Department of Homeland Security or the Department of Education.
     

  • End Of Life Care In America, A Doctor's Diagnosis.
    Over the course of his career, author, doctor and bioethicist Robert Martensen has treated an estimated 75,000 patients in the emergency room and the ICU. In his new book, "A Life Worth Living," Martensen presents case studies that illustrate the problems and complexities of American health care system, and argues that safeguarding the quality of a patient's life sometimes trumps the urge to sustain life at all cost. This story originally aired April 2, 2009. See: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102638208 

  • Dying into Grace
    by Artemis March
    For more information, please see: http://www.dyingintograce.com/
  • A time for listening and caring: spirituality and the care of the Chronically Ill and Dying (Preview),
    by Christina M. Puchalski
  • Studies: Some nursing home elderly get futile care
    (Full article no longer available)
    By ALICIA CHANG, Associated Press, Thursday, October 15, 2009
    LOS ANGELES - A surprising number of frail, elderly Americans in nursing homes are suffering from futile care at the end of their lives, two new federally funded studies reveal.

  • Quality Care During Advanced Illness: What Do Patients Want That Works? 
     Featuring: Diane Meier, Director, Center to Advance Palliative Care; Jim Conway, Senior Vice President, Institute for Healthcare Improvement, Thursday, October 8, 2009 
    Between the care that patients and families want when faced with advanced illness, and what is often made available, "lies not just a gap but a chasm." Those words, associated with the IOM's groundbreaking blueprint, Crossing the Quality Chasm, are as apt a rallying cry as ever for transforming US health care, including what patients need at the end of their lives. Yet, patients and families often find themselves at odds with or abandoned by their medical providers at this stage of their care, forced to seek others who will respect their wishes.

    - Listen to a recording of the program
     

  • Dignity in Dying
    By Kent Sepkowitz | NEWSWEEK, Published Sep 26, 2009 , From the magazine issue dated Oct 5, 2009
    Cutting the cost of health care without cutting its quality is the central issue in the reform debate. Since a large proportion of Medicare dollars are spent on patients in the last months of life, savings could come from facilitating the wishes of those who choose to die at home.

  • The Case for Killing Granny - Rethinking End-of-Life Care
    By Evan Thomas | NEWSWEEK (From the magazine issue dated September 21, 2009)
    ....The idea that we might ration health care to seniors (or anyone else) is political anathema. Politicians do not dare breathe the R word, lest they be accused-however wrongly-of trying to pull the plug on Grandma. But the need to spend less money on the elderly at the end of life is the elephant in the room in the health-reform debate. Everyone sees it but no one wants to talk about it. At a more basic level, Americans are afraid not just of dying, but of talking and thinking about death. Until Americans learn to contemplate death as more than a scientific challenge to be overcome, our health-care system will remain unfixable.

  • Medicare Hospice Care for Beneficiaries in Nursing Facilities: Compliance With Medicare Coverage Requirements (PDF)
    U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General, September 8, 2009
    This report determines the extent to which hospice claims for beneficiaries in nursing facilities in 2006 met Medicare coverage requirements. The Medicare hospice benefit allows a beneficiary with a terminal illness to forgo curative treatment for the illness and instead receive palliative care. The number of beneficiaries receiving hospice care has increased significantly in recent years, and some studies suggest that the use of hospice care has grown most rapidly in nursing facilities. In addition, previous Office of Inspector General work has raised questions about the hospice benefit for nursing home residents. However, little subsequent research has been done to examine hospice care for these beneficiaries, and almost no beneficiary-specific data exist.

  • Counseling That Helps the Dying Live
    Strobe Talbott, President, The Brookings Institution
    Many opponents of health-care reform have concentrated their fire on a provision in House legislation that would provide for government reimbursement to doctors who offer end-of-life counseling. How our society deals with those confronting death is understandably controversial. Unfortunately, the debate has degenerated into a cacophony of demagoguery and distortion, including invocations of Hitler and fear-mongering about "death panels." As a result of these attacks, a number of senators who are key to determining what bill will emerge from Congress have abandoned support for end-of-life counseling.
     

  • The Unwitting Birthplace of the 'Death Panel' Myth
    By Alec MacGillis, The Washington Post, Friday, September 4, 2009
    LA CROSSE, Wis. -- This city often shows up on "best places to live" lists, but residents say it is also a good place to die -- which is how it landed in the center of a controversy that almost derailed health-care reform this summer. The town's biggest hospital, Gundersen Lutheran, has long been a pioneer in ensuring that the care provided to patients in their final months complies with their wishes. More recently, it has taken the lead in seeking to have Medicare compensate physicians for advising patients on end-of-life planning.
     

  • What the end-of-life conversation can bring
    By Joan Anderman, Boston Globe Staff | Wednesday, September 2, 2009
    ...The hardest part is starting, whether the conversation begins among family members at the kitchen table or in a doctor's office - where the breakdown in communication can be traced back to school, said Dr. Susan Block, professor of psychiatry and medicine at Harvard Medical School and chairwoman of the department of Psychosocial Oncology and Palliative Care at Dana Farber Cancer Institute.
     

  • When Stories Trump Facts in Health Care
    Opinion, By Abraham Verghese, M.D. The Wall Street Journal, Wednesday, September 2, 2009
    ...And we've heard stories of so-called "Death Panels" that would be created in the future if health reform legislation is passed. These stories seem to have no basis in fact. They also obscure the fact that many patients in our current system suffer needlessly at the end of their life, because physicians often feel that the patient's story is at standstill unless the doctor orders more treatments, more tests.

    But this is exactly the moment when a physician can be of great value by helping the family and the patient come to terms with illness and death; it is the moment we can promise to be with them through thick and thin, to blunt pain, to reduce suffering and anxiety. There is only one ending to all our stories - and part of the art of medicine is helping patients and families find their way through a full healthy life to a peaceful end.
     

  • Guest editorial: End-of-life care is not the end of treatment
    (Full article no longer available)
    By David Tribble, M.D., The Tennessean, Tuesday, September 1, 2009
    If we distill the discussion about health-care reform down to its basis, most of us are looking for quality health care that we can afford available generally to citizens of the United States. What we fear from health-care reform is health-care rationing, particularly the idea that effective treatment may be withheld from some among us because of an arbitrarily applied standard, such as age. Nowhere has this fear been more clearly stated than with regard to the issue of end-of-life care, whose opponents have described "death panels" making decisions about what treatments a patient may have.
     

  • Nothing to Get Scared About; Living Will Gives Me Peace of Mind
    By Ingrid Komar, Special to The Washington Post, Tuesday, September 1, 2009
    I am 82 years old, have had a wonderful life and, although there are things I would still like to accomplish, I am not interested in merely extending my life via a much-diminished existence. As a result of smoking for many years, I have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD. It is a debilitating disease. I can't walk very far without getting out of breath. And I have a living will. My disease is not curable, and it's only going to get worse, so several decades ago I drew up a document specifying exactly what medical care I do, and do not, want in my final days.

    Opponents of health-care reform have tried to scare people into believing that the government, by encouraging doctors to talk to their patients about living wills and end-of-life care, will decide who lives and who dies. But the bad news is not that the government will make these decisions for you. The bad news is that you will have to make them yourself, and then make your wishes known to the appropriate physicians and medical facilities.
     

  • Expanded Insurance Benefits Break Down Barriers to Hospice Care, According to New Study
    New Rochelle, NY, September 1, 2009-Patients with advanced illnesses more than doubled their use of hospice care when a major national health plan made hospice care more readily accessible, according to the results of a comparative study published in Journal of Palliative Medicine, a peer-reviewed publication from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.( www.liebertpub.com). Journal of Palliative Medicine is the official journal of the Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC) and an official journal of the Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association (HPNA).

     

  • Health Reform and Palliative Care
    Center to Advance Palliative Care, August, 2009
    All palliative care professionals should reach out to educate policy makers during the August recess so that they have the information necessary to make informed decisions once they return to Washington in September.

    Palliative care-the medical subspecialty focused on preventing, treating and relieving the debilitating effects of serious and chronic illness-is a key solution to achieving quality health care. It incorporates many of the ideals outlined in the major federal bills: excellent, appropriate, cost effective, interdisciplinary pain and symptom management and careful coordination of transitions for patients with advanced illness.
     

  • 8 Facts to Know About Palliative Care
    Misconceptions abound. Patients and families need not be afraid to ask for help
    By Sarah Baldauf, U.S. News and World Report, Tuesday, August 25, 2009
    As the debate over healthcare reform slogs through summer, misinformation about "death panels" and seniors' healthcare being rationed keeps on proliferating, one fiery town hall meeting at a time. The impassioned discourse may have you wondering about current practice to help a patient cope with serious illness or end-of-life realities. The term "palliative care" often conjures tones of a death knell, but the reality of what such services provide-and when they can and should be recruited-might be surprising. While death might ultimately become a part of the conversation, recruiting such care is not just about dying.

     

  • Respectful Care at the End of Life: Giving the Public What They Want (Full article no longer available)
    Jim Conway
    Senior Vice President, Institute for Healthcare Improvement
    Member, Health Care Quality and Cost Council
    WBUR CommonHealth Blog, August 12, 2009
    Conversations are exploding across the nation about health reform and, more specifically, about improving respectful care at the end of life, and these discussions are startling. Diversity of opinion, no matter how pointed, is needed to enrich decision making processes. Yet I'm surprised by the intensity of what I am hearing. The messages are strong and largely focused on life limiting actions being taken against the wishes of patients, family members, and healthcare staff. I am also struck by who is doing the talking. In recent weeks I've had challenging questions from personal friends and health care colleagues referencing fears of rationing, euthanasia, inability to assert "my rights," and fixing this one piece in an overall "broken" healthcare system. These conversations have occurred at speaking engagements, private social events, on the street, and during breaks at meetings. They are emotional and deeply felt with many of those speaking scared and angry.

    Beyond the questions that arise I've wondered what friends and colleagues and strangers alike are really saying. Three themes have emerged: Conversations about preparing for death, if they take place at all, are hard to have, they're deeply personal, and they are taken on often with little experience or training (by those within healthcare as well as the general public). No one / few believe that our health care system can build a reliable system that will effectively honor the patient's wishes for respectful care at the end of life. If it's so important and possible, why haven't they done it already? Finally, there is a strong concern that we're only focusing on end of life care right now because the country is in desperate need of money to pay for health care reform and a tremendous amount of resources are expended in the last 6 months of life.....
    (Full article no longer available)
     

  • End-of-life planning is no conspiracy
    By Muriel R. Gillick, Boston Globe Op-Ed Section | Wednesday, August 12, 2009
    FAR FROM a left-wing conspiracy to deprive you of desirable care near the end of life, advance care planning - talking with one's physician about goals and preferences for medical care in the event of incapacity - is the best way to ensure that your wishes are respected if you lose the capacity to speak for yourself. Because it is widely recognized as the ideal way to prevent both over-treatment and under-treatment, it has become the standard of care over the past 15 years.....

  • Poster - A specialized case management program to improve the quality of end-of-life care
    Authors: Claire Spettell, PhD, Wayne Rawlins, MD, MBA, Randall Krakauer, MD, FACP, FACR, Joaquim Fernandes, MS, Mary Breton, Wayne Gowdy, Sharon Brodeur, RN, MPA, Maureen Maccoy, BSN, MBA, Troyen Brennan, MD, MPH

  • Getting health care healthy; Accepting death outside the hospital
    Anne Moore, Op-Ed Section, The Chicago Tribune, August 5 2009
    "Next year we'll spend $17 billion in Medicare money on an oxymoron: preventing inevitable death. So forget for a moment the plans coming out of Washington. Curing health care is not a question of Obama's blue pill or Obama's red pill. The answer may be no pill at all..."

  • End of Life Care and Healthcare Reform, By Myra Christopher, Op-Ed, July 31, 2009 (PDF)

  • <strong>Side-by-Side of End-of-Life/Advanced Illness Legislation, July 16, 2009 (PDF)</strong> pdf format of EOL_Side_by_side_legislation_July_2009.pdf doc format of EOL_Side_by_side_legislation_July_2009.doc

  • <strong>Communication from the Center to Advance Palliative Care: Palliative Care: A Key Solution for Reforming Health Care, July 29, 2009 (PDF)</strong> pdf format of Center to Advance Palliative Care email.pdf doc format of Center to Advance Palliative Care email.doc
    Note: See The Center to Advance Palliative Care website at: http://www.capc.org/

  • Robert Wood Johnson Foundation - State Initiatives in End-of-Life Care
    Note: See Robert Wood Johnson Foundation website specific to End Of Life & Palliative Care

  • Punting On Paying For Health Care; Who will foot the bill for a reform of the system? Answering that question will resolve the debate.
    Brian Wingfield, Forbes.Com, July 23, 2009

  • End-Of-Life Care Puts Tremendous Burden On Medicare (Video)
    WVCB-TV, The Boston Channel, July 23, 2009

  • End-Of-Life Care Under Microscope (Video)
    WVCB-TV, The Boston Channel, July 22, 2009

  • How to Cut Health-Care Costs: Less Care, More Data
    by Michael Grunwald, Time, June 23, 2009

  • Albert Schweitzer Fellows in The New Republic
    The Albert Schweitzer Fellowship's Official Blog, June 22, 2009

  • Advocate for others fights to die at home; Insurer says hospice coverage used up
    by Kay Lazar, The Boston Globe, May 22, 2009

  • Terminally ill patients delay talk of hospice; Study finds many have unrealistic outlook
    by Kay Lazar, The Boston Globe, May 26, 2009
    Americans tend to procrastinate when it comes to matters involving death and dying, but a Harvard Medical School study published yesterday finds that even many terminally ill patients and their doctors put off conversations about end-of-life choices. The study, one of the largest to date on the issue, found that only about half of the 1,517 patients with metastasized lung cancer who were surveyed had discussed hospice care with their physician or healthcare provider within four to seven months of their diagnosis. The vast majority of such patients do not survive two years. Hospice care - which can be delivered in a home, hospital, or other facility - focuses on managing a patient's pain and emotional and spiritual needs, rather than trying to cure the terminal illness.

  • Quality of Death: End of Life Care in America
    Does a booming aging population in the US combined with an endless array of medical treatments place too much stress on our healthcare budget and on older patients?     by Rachel Gotbaum, WBUR, (five part series)

  • End of Life Care in Boston
    (Full article no longer available)
    Posted by Adam Ragusea, Associate Producer, Radio Boston, Tuesday, April 28th, 2009

 

 

This information is provided by the Health Care Quality and Cost Council.