Circles of Influence 2007

Organization:  Covenant Hospice, Pensacola, FL.  The hospice’s innovations include its culture of leadership throughout the organization, strong educational outreach, and evidence-based tools and protocols.

Recent Achievements:  The organization continues to progress toward its goal of a homelike environment. In addition, it provides family member outreach with grief and loss programs. The active collaboration between the long-term care facility and the hospice has strengthened with the staffs providing mutual support. The long-term care facility staff is educated with a hospice in-service and has become more comfortable with palliative care. 

The program has expanded its collaborative nature with weekly interdisciplinary meetings with hospice and nursing home representatives to discuss individual patient progress and needs. Training provided to the nursing communities has included pain management and hospice medications. The collaborative team has taken great strides at reduction of the use of psychoactive medications over the past year. Despite reductions in the funding of hospice services by Medicare, Presbyterian SeniorCare and Family Hospice and Palliative Care have found ways to still provide beneficial complementary therapies, including art therapy programming provided by Presbyterian SeniorCare staff, not just Family Hospice volunteers.

Award Impact: The award strengthened and built on the organization’s commitment to sound hospice care. The external recognition adds to patient and family comfort with hospice care. And it has strengthened peer recognition within the long-term care community. The two organizations support the person and their loved ones but also the staff who help to improve the lives of these patients. When four Family Hospice residents at Presbyterian SeniorCare passed away in the same week, Family Hospice provided a grief counselor to support employees in addition to the ongoing support for the families of the deceased. Training, support and the relationship between the two organizations have had a lasting impact.

Organization:  University of California San Francisco Palliative Care Program, San Francisco, CA.   Innovation highlights include use of hospitalists in end-of-life and palliative care, commitment to research and shared learning, and emphasis on educating the next generation of practitioners.

Achievements since Circle of Life Recognition: UCSF is a CAPC Palliative Care Leadership Center and continues to assist hospitals in developing palliative care programs. It is currently working with California public hospitals and hospitals in the Pacific Northwest/Regence Foundation and plans to help established programs measure and improve quality. UCSF’s Palliative Care Program founded the Palliative Care Quality Network in 2011, a multi-hospital collaborative established to benchmark and disseminate best practices in palliative care. To improve care, UCSF’s program also continues to conduct research in patient satisfaction and palliative care for patients with heart failure, including a pilot randomized trial of inpatient, outpatient, and home-based palliative care. Additionally, an accredited fellowship program began in July 2010 and continues to welcome cohorts of fellows every year.

The program received a mayoral proclamation on its 10th anniversary. It also held a session at the Commonwealth Club on end-of-life care and conducted radio and television interviews during health reform debates regarding “death panels. A recent gift of $1 million over five years will allow the program to develop innovative approaches to outpatient and home-based palliative care integrated with inpatient palliative care and to support fellow education. Dr. Pantilat, the Director of the UCSF Palliative Care Program, received an Irvine Foundation Leadership Award in recognition of his work to improve the lives of Californians.

Award Impact: The Circle of Life Award provided recognition of quality care. Internally, the award brought the team recognition on the hospital’s websites and increased staff morale. The award enlarged the number of staff who want to work with the team and provided opportunities to expand outreach and collaboration within the hospital.

The program includes on grant applications that it received the Circle of Life Award—highlighting the award as national recognition.

The application and site visit process was an opportunity to marshal medical center support and to document and gather the impact of work done.

Organization:  Woodwell—A Program of Presbyterian SeniorCare and Family Hospice and Palliative Care, Oakmont, PA. The program was cited for its partnership between a long-term care regional network and hospice training for all staff including maintenance and housekeeping and seamless end-of-life and palliative care delivery by nursing home and hospice staff.

Recent Achievements: The organization continues to progress toward its goal of a homelike environment. In addition, it provides family member outreach with grief and loss programs. The active collaboration between the long-term care facility and the hospice has strengthened with the staffs providing mutual support. The long-term care facility staff is educated with a hospice in-service and has become more comfortable with palliative care. 

The program has expanded its collaborative nature with weekly interdisciplinary meetings with hospice and nursing home representatives to discuss individual patient progress and needs. Training provided to the nursing communities has included pain management and hospice medications. The collaborative team has taken great strides at reduction of the use of psychoactive medications over the past year. Despite reductions in the funding of hospice services by Medicare, Presbyterian SeniorCare and Family Hospice and Palliative Care have found ways to still provide beneficial complementary therapies, including art therapy programming provided by Presbyterian SeniorCare staff, not just Family Hospice volunteers.

Award Impact: The award strengthened and built on the organization’s commitment to sound hospice care. The external recognition adds to patient and family comfort with hospice care. And it has strengthened peer recognition within the long-term care community. The two organizations support the person and their loved ones but also the staff who help to improve the lives of these patients. When four Family Hospice residents at Presbyterian SeniorCare passed away in the same week, Family Hospice provided a grief counselor to support employees in addition to the ongoing support for the families of the deceased. Training, support and the relationship between the two organizations have had a lasting impact.