Grants sought to help finance efforts
Signs of forward motion for the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO) in Alexandria, VA, were cited during its recent Management and Leadership Conference, held Sept. 7-9 in Phoenix. Under the leadership of president J. Donald Schumacher, NHPCO is pursing a number of new initiatives, with several large foundation requests pending to help pay for them. They include:
- developing legislative language for federally funded hospice demonstration projects;
- increased partnering with other national organizations;
- promotion of a new membership category in NHPCO for non-hospice palliative care programs (this new category already has 49 members in operational and planning stages of providing a variety of services, including teaching, in a variety of settings);
- a plan to offer free individual memberships in NHPCO’s National Council of Hospice and Palliative Professionals to staff and volunteers of NHPCO provider hospices;
- efforts to assemble "a stable of well-known hospice spokespersons" for national media outreach;
- a proposed Global Leadership Center for Care at the End of Life.
The last initiative is a centerpiece of NHPCO’s new strategic plan, which is still under development but could be rolled out as soon as January 2004, Schumacher said. The Global Leadership Center would be separate from NHPCO’s existing member services, and could include specific offices addressing diversity, HIV/AIDS, grief and loss, children and adolescents, executive leadership training, and consumer issues. "All of these offices ultimately will be able to develop support for global activities," he said.
What will this proposal center mean to America’s hospices? "Eventually, it will mean more research, more education, and more opportunities for us to fund programs around the world and around the country," Schumacher told Hospice Management Advisor. "We would not only raise money for our own benefit, but also do requests for proposals to manage other foundations’ money to help fund new programmatic initiatives around the country. So what it means to your readers is this: Pay attention. Stay tuned. You may see some opportunities to participate in this discussion."
Hospices are reaching out to physicians and capturing more of the terminally ill patients in their communities, which is reflected in new data showing a slight increase in overall lengths of stay. More hospices are open to enrolling patients receiving radiation and chemotherapy "as a transition from aggressive care to terminal care," he said.
One rural hospice professional commented during a session at the Phoenix conference that his hospice had admitted 18 patients receiving chemotherapy since Jan. 1. Sixteen of them chose to stop the chemotherapy within three weeks of their hospice admission, based on dialogue with the hospice team.
Schumacher told a story about a medical center physician who had to call eight local hospice programs before finding one willing to admit a terminally ill cancer patient who required intravenous administration of pain medications because he had lost the ability to absorb drugs enterally due to a tumor in his gut. "That kind of thing should not happen. That is our problem. We have made our situation worse because of our fears and anxieties. It’s time for hospice programs to start taking some risks," or else risk losing ground to palliative care alternatives, he asserted.
"There are some people who will never accept hospice care. So hospices need to find ways to serve them with palliative care consultations. We are, however, the experts, with the team experience and the management expertise. We’re the ones that need to be doing the bulk of palliative care," Schumacher said. "Take out of your vocabulary, I can’t do it,’" he exhorted attendees. "You have to trust a little bit some of the things we’ll be urging you to do. We can’t be defined by a narrow box any longer."
Signs of forward motion for the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO) in Alexandria, VA, were cited during its recent Management and Leadership Conference.
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