LIFE line            August, 2001

Updates from the Kansas LIFE Project

(Living Initiatives For End-of-Life Care)

On the Web:  www.lifeproject.org

• Notice:  We experienced technical problems with our email server on July 27 and 31.  If you sent email to any member of the LIFE Project staff during that time, and you have not received a response, it may not have been received.

• Hot off the press:  The second issue of the LIFE Project newsletter, A Design for Change, has just been delivered from the printer!  The theme of this edition is “ADVANCE CARE PLANNING:  Do it for those you love.”   For a preview of Issue #2, go to www.lifeproject.org/home.htm.   LIFE Project staff has mailed a single copy to all Project Partners.  If you are interested in larger quantities of this issue or would like more bookmarks or wall charts, please call the LIFE Project at (316) 263-6380.

• The FINDING OUR WAY website is up and running!  Go to www.findingourway.net to read the stories in their entirety from the 15-week newspaper series scheduled to begin Sept. 9.  Publishers and editors should go to the Knight-Ridder Tribune website at www.krtdirect.com/dying to download stories, photos, and author bios.

• The LIFE Project wants to know:  What activities and stories does your local paper and community have planned to promote the upcoming newspaper series, FINDING OUR WAY:  Living with Dying in America?  Please share your plans with us!

• All LIFE Project Partners and Funders are invited to attend our annual Project Partner Meeting on Friday, October 26, in Topeka.  Your attendance at this meeting is important!  The Kansas LIFE Project has over 50 Project Partners working together to improve end-of-life care for all Kansans.  This annual meeting gives everyone an opportunity to learn more about LIFE Project initiatives and other efforts underway throughout the state. 

  The meeting will be held in the morning and should last about 3 hours.  We are currently finalizing the agenda and will send more information to you soon.  Please mark your calendars now!

• The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has announced a new $20 million initiative to help communities develop and sustain comprehensive long-term care and supportive services systems to meet the growing needs of older adults.   To be eligible for funding, an applicant must demonstrate that an existing core group of community leaders is already working together and must provide examples of resultant improvements for vulnerable adults.  Exceptions to eligibility criteria will be made for rural communities.  Letters of intent are due by Friday, September 14, 2001.  Full details about this grant opportunity can be found at www.muskie.usm.maine.edu/communitypartnerships/.

• Public television station KPTS in Wichita has graciously agreed to re-air the Moyers PBS series, On Our Own Terms.  It will run on four consecutive Sundays in September (Sept. 9, 16, 23, and 30) from 3:30-5:00 pm on Wichita channel 8.  The Wichita Caring Communities council is also planning to staff a phone bank during the re-broadcast. 

• Last Acts is a call-to-action campaign to improve care at the end of life. Their goals are to bring death related issues out in the open and help individuals and organizations pursue better ways to care for the dying. They believe in palliative care, which focuses on ways to ease pain and make life better for people who are dying and their loved ones. Palliative care means taking care of the whole person--body, mind, spirit--heart and soul. It looks at death and dying as something natural and personal. The goal of palliative care is to provide the best quality of life till the very end of life.

  Last Acts is now 743 partners strong!  Has your organization joined yet?  The organizations you belong to can play a vital role in improving care of the dying. Your employer, religious congregation, professional association, or community service agency--all can help. Encourage them to join.  Go to www.lastacts.org to register.

  Thank you to the following LIFE Project Partners that have taken the time to register with Last Acts: 

  Central Kansas Medical Center, Great Bend

  Central Plains Area Agency on Aging, Wichita

  First United Methodist Church, Wichita

  Hospice, Inc., Wichita

  Hospice of Jefferson County, Oskaloosa

  Hospice of Reno County, Hutchinson

  Hospice of Salina, Inc., Salina

  Kansas Cancer Pain Initiative, Kansas City

  Kansas Health Ethics, Wichita

  Kansas Health Institute, Topeka

  Meadowlark Hospice, Clay Center

  Parkinson Assn of Greater Kansas City, Kansas City

  University of Kansas Cancer Center, Kansas City

• This year the American Osteopathic Association has chosen “End of Life Care” as the theme for Osteopathic Medicine Week, November 11-18, 2001.  The AOA is distributing literature on various topics, such as acute pain management strategies; social and cultural practices related to death and dying; counseling family, friends, and other caregivers; financing end-of-life care; and using advance directives to protect the wishes of patients during end stages of life.  Chip Wheelen with the Kansas Association of Osteopathic medicine will attend the AOA leadership conference in St. Louis at the close of Osteopathic Medicine Week.

• Kansas Health Ethics in Wichita holds advance care planning clinics each Tuesday from 2:30-4:00 pm at their office, 5900 E. Central – Suite 101, in Wichita.  KHE staff will answer questions and supply the forms for living wills and durable powers of attorney for health care decisions.  A notary public is also available during the clinics.
• Sandy Kuhlman, Co-Chair of the LIFE Project Public Engagement and Education Task Group, and Jan Brandom, LIFE Project Manager, are scheduling visits to each of the Caring Communities.  Jan and Sandy are looking forward to attending a council meeting in each of the Caring Communities.

• Stacie Ogborn, Project Coordinator of the LIFE Project Pain Protocol Facilities Initiative, conducted telephone conference calls with all participating facilities to discuss the progress being made during the first quarter of the project, which ended July 31.  The facilities are working at their own pace to implement improved pain management practices within their organizations.  Nearly all have formed inter-disciplinary pain teams, and most are meeting regularly to establish new procedures or to enhance existing ones. 

  A sampling of comments received from the facilities follows:

  -         Most, but not all, facilities have expressed satisfaction with the enthusiasm and cooperation demonstrated by nursing staff and other professionals to improve pain management within their organizations.

  -         A few facilities have expressed frustration with finding a physician champion or champions to lead the charge for improving pain management among the medical staff.  Others have experienced relative ease in obtaining “buy-in” from local physicians.

  -         Most facilities are eager to learn new methods of assessing pain from the other facilities participating in the project.  The Project is encouraging a sharing of information among the participants.

  -         Several facilities have already conducted staff training events, including collaborative sessions with local hospice organizations, use of local experts, and on-site visits by Dr. Robert Twillman of KU Med Center.  Others have scheduled staff in-service opportunities for the upcoming months.

  -         Some of the facilities have commented that subtle improvements to pain management are already noticeable.  To the surprise of facility coordinators, these improvements have been achieved, not by drastically overhauling an existing set of practices, but by enhancing or “tweaking” what was there to begin with. 

UPCOMING EVENTS:

AUG. 20-21            Midwest Bioethics Center and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (formerly Health Care Financing Administration) will sponsor “Compassionate Options:  End-of-Life Care for Nursing Home Residents,” August 20-21, 2001, in Atlanta, GA.  The focus of the consortium will be on palliative care, pain management and hospice.  For more information contact Judith Crane, Midwest Bioethics Center, Kansas City, (816) 221-1100.

SEPT. 11-12            LAST ACTS will launch the first in a series of five regional meetings beginning in September 2001.  The first conference of the North/South Plains region will be September 10-12, 2001, in Denver, CO.  Future meetings are tentatively scheduled as follows:  November 2001 (Philadelphia, PA), February 2002 (Tampa or Orlando, FL), June 2002 (San Francisco, CA, or Seattle, WA), September 2002 (St. Louis, MO, or Chicago, IL). 

Donna Bales will present a workshop on “Maximizing the Power of the Community” on September 12 during the Last Acts meeting.

For a copy of the conference brochure, visit the Last Acts website at www.lastacts.org/file/publications/regional meetings promo.pdf

SEPT. 10-11            As of this date, there are still a few slots available for the two-day ELNEC (End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium) train-the-trainer precourse being offered prior to the Last Acts conference.  The ELNEC project is a comprehensive, national nursing education program to improve end-of-life care.   Continuing education and staff development educators who are experienced in end-of-life care and provide nursing continuing education in hospitals, hospice, palliative care, long-term, home care, and other clinical settings are encouraged to attend.

For more information about the ELNEC curriculum, log on to www.aacn.nche.edu/elnec/curriculum.htm or contact Susan Taylor at (727) 588-2864 or by email:  susantaylor@thehospice.org.  Registrations are being accepted on a space-available basis.

OCT. 4-5            The AKH annual meeting will be held Oct. 4-5 in Kansas City.  If you would like a registration packet and are not sure you’re on our mailing list, please contact us at 316-263-6380.

OCT. 6             Make plans to attend “Journey to Life’s End:  Decisions, Love, Hope” to be held Saturday, October 6, 2001, at Johnson County Community College in Overland Park.  This unique end-of-life symposium will feature a full day of recognized speakers and breakout sessions that will address such important issues as advance directives, organ donation, ethical dilemmas in health care, palliative care, government programs and benefits, end-of-life issues involving children, caregiving for seniors, grief preparation, and other topics.  One of the keynote presenters will be national syndicated columnist and radio talk show celebrity, Mitch Albom, author of the bestseller, Tuesdays with Morrie.

The conference is under the direction of Steve Jeffers, PhD, Community Outreach Coordinator at Shawnee Mission Medical Center.  More information will be available soon.

OCT. 13/27            AARP of Kansas is tentatively scheduled to host two Caring Conversations workshops in Wichita on October 13 & 27.

*   If you have any announcements to add to our calendar, please forward them to Stacie Ogborn by the 10^th of the month:  LIFE Project, 1901 University, Wichita, KS  67212, Fax # (316) 263-6542, or submit them by email to:  stacie@lifeproject.org.