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Hospice Council
Meeting:
The committee reviewed
the proposed agenda for the Hospice Council of Vermont meeting which
will be held on June 8, 2000. A Vermont Palliative Care Initiative
or Excellent Care at the End-of-Life (EXCEL) meeting will be held
that evening and will continue on Friday June 9, 2000. Committee
members will be working with Ginny Fry to contact potential speakers
for the meeting, such as June Dahl and Cathy Foley. Denise will work
on fund-raising for the meeting. The agenda for the EXCEL Meeting
will include updates from the VPCI (EXCEL) task forces and updates
on regional programs, as well as, discussion of recent developments
and best practices in pain and symptom management . Friday afternoon
will focus on the AMA's EPEC project (Educating Physicians about End
of Life Care) that several committee members have participated in.
Ginny will be finalizing the agenda around the end of February, so
committee members are encouraged to contact her with any suggestions
or input as soon as possible.
Medicaid DUR:
Tim Thompson has met
with Joe Jacobs M.D. to discuss the Medicaid Drug Utilization Review
(DUR) program. Medicaid has an extremely detailed data base which
includes the prescribing practices of all physicians who participate
in Medicaid in Vermont. This data could show present prescribing
practices for dying patients in nursing homes and might allow
measurement of change. Funding may be available from Medicaid or NIH
to examine end-of-life care prescribing practices. Tim Thompson and
Cy Jordan, M.D., from VPQHC, will look into this further.
Fund raising:
The committee discussed
requesting contributions from each hospital to improve the
end-of-life care in their community. Other groups such as the
Medical Society Nursing Home Association, the Home Health Assembly
and the Hospice Council would also be asked to contribute. This
funding could be used as a match for grant applications or to fund
end-of-life care projects. Denise Niemira, Arnold Golodetz and
Madeleine Mongan will work on developing a presentation that can be
used for hospitals.
Mission Statement
Task Force:
To follow up on the
mission statement task force, Denise Niemira reported that North
Country Hospital has included end-of-life care in its mission
statement. The committee determined that NVRH, CVMC and Mt. Ascutney
are ready to look at this as well, through a coordinated effort to
educate trustees and medical staff. The focus of this effort should
be on creating meaningful end-of-life care programs in a community,
and not simply changing the wording of a mission statement. With
help from Denise, we will include the North Country mission
statement on the list serve and web site.
VPQHC Quality Report:
Ginny Fry is working
with VPQHC on developing an end of life care page for the VPQHC
Quality Report. A draft of this page has been distributed. Since
VPQHC has a February print date on this, Ginny needs suggestions or
feedback ASAP.
EMS DNR:
John Campbell will
research how other states address EMS DNR's and speak with Ellen
Thompson, from the Department of Health, to determine their
position.
Task Force update:
Madeleine Mongan will
contact each task force leader to obtain a status report on their
progress.
Next meeting: The
next EXCEL meeting will be held on:
Tuesday, February 15th from 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. by conference
call.
The call-in number is 1-800-852-7711.
VMS will send out a notice of this meeting.
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