LIFE line            May, 2001

Updates from the Kansas LIFE Project

(Living Initiatives For End-of-Life Care)

On the Web:   www.lifeproject.org

• The fifteen-week “Finding Our Way:  Living With Dying in America” newspaper series on end-of-life issues planned by Knight-Ridder Tribune will be available at NO CHARGE to all Kansas newspapers.  The series will be available to newspapers in its entirety prior to the series release date of September 10.  It will be available from the KRT website in regular news format, as well as in paginated form for many months after the final segment is run.  Also planned is a national public relations campaign via radio and television broadcasts.  Plans for a live Internet web-cast are also in the works.

  Stay tuned for more details on this exciting educational series.  It is an incredible opportunity for communities to get local press coverage of important end-of-life issues, such as grief, hospice, advance care planning, and more! 

  For ideas on how your community can make the most of this extraordinary opportunity, contact Jan Brandom at the project office, (316)263-6380, or by email:  jan@lifeproject.org.

• The LIFE Project and Association of Kansas Hospices sponsored EPEC (Education for Professionals in End-of-Life Care) training, April 27-28, 2001, at the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City, Kansas.   Eleven physician-nurse teams and one dual physician team attended the two-day intensive training, representing the following communities in Kansas:  Clay Center, Topeka, Pratt, Kansas City, Dodge City, Newton, Shawnee Mission, Emporia and Lawrence.

  Thanks to Sarah Taylor, MD, Professor, Director of Palliative Care Service, KU Med. Center, for serving as director of the program.  Other faculty included:  Ann Allegre, MD, Medical Director, Kansas City Hospice; Marge Barnett, RN, BSN, AOCN, Cancer Care and Palliative Care Clinical Nurse Specialist, KU Med. Center; Gary Doolittle, MD, Assoc. Professor, Director, Office of TeleMedicine and TeleHealth, KU Med. Center; Sarah Forbes, RN, PhD, Asst. Professor, KU Med. Center; Teresa D. Long, MD, Asst. Professor, Adult Psychiatry, KU Med. Center; Donald Milligan, MD, Clinical Asst. Professor, KU Med. Center; Jerry Menikoff, MD, JD, Asst. Professor, KU Med. Center; Ron Stephens, MD, MA (Wales), Consultant of Oncology and Philosophy of Health Care.

• The annual meeting of the Community-State Partnerships to Improve End-of-Life Care was held May 16-18 at the Fairmont Plaza Hotel in Kansas City, Missouri.  Representing the LIFE Project were Donna Bales and Stacie Ogborn.  Donna gave a presentation on the public engagement efforts of the LIFE Project and Caring Communities of Kansas.  Stacie shared information about the LIFE Project’s pain initiatives, focusing on the Pain Protocol Facilities Initiative involving fifteen acute and long-term care facilities in Kansas.

  ·        Stacie Ogborn, Project Coordinator of the LIFE Project Pain Protocol Facilities Initiative, met with Pat Berry, PhD, RN, CRNH, University of Wisconsin-Madison Medical School, Madison, WI, on May 16 to finalize the assessment tools being used in gathering data on how pain is assessed in fifteen acute and long-term care facilities in Kansas.  Ten randomly selected patients/residents from each facility will be surveyed quarterly using the “One-Minute Pain Questionnaire,” which was created by Berry’s group in Wisconsin.  Professional staff members will also be surveyed at the start and finish of the fifteen-month project to determine how accurately staff attitudes correlate to the responses of their patients/residents.  The findings of the demonstration project will be published at the conclusion of the research endeavor.

• Mercedes Bern-Klug, MSW, MA, Associate Director for Community Education at the Center on Aging, KU Medical Center, and Co-Chair of the LIFE Project Public Engagement Task Force, was one of the featured speakers at the Governor’s Conference on Aging, held May 3-4 in Topeka.  Mercedes provided a brief overview of the LIFE Project and the Public Engagement Task Force and encouraged people in the audience to contact their local Caring Community to participate.  End-of-life wall charts were distributed, as well as fact sheets in Spanish.  Also presenting at the conference was Debra Zehr, Vice President of Education and Public Policy at Kansas Association of Homes and Services for the Aging.  Debra provided an overview of the LIFE Project Public Policy Task Force and discussed advance directives and issues that arise with guardianship in Kansas.

• End-of-life fact sheets in Spanish are now available from the LIFE Project.  Please contact the project office at (316) 263-6380 to order.  We would like to thank the Center on Aging at Kansas University Medical Center for their generous efforts in producing the Spanish fact sheets.

• The focus of the second issue of the LIFE Project Design for Change will be on advance directives.  Look for the latest issue in Summer, 2001.

UPCOMING END-OF-LIFE EVENTS  *

·        Kansas Health Ethics, Inc., Wichita, is hosting “End of Life:  Kansans Deserve Excellent Care,” a two-hour program created by Kansas State University Extension and Research.  Jenell Smith, KSU Extension Educator, Sedgwick County Coordinator of the Senior Health Insurance Counseling for Kansas, will present the program at Kansas Health Ethics, 5900 E. Central, Wichita, on Wednesday, June 20, from 9:00-11:00 a.m.  Call Carolyn Harrison to reserve your spot at (316) 684-1991.  Agenda and certificate of attendance will be awarded to social workers and clergy.  Nurses will be given Individual Offering Approval Form for nursing CEU’s.

·        Hospice, Inc., Wichita is sponsoring “Children’s Grief Day Camp,” June 20-21 at Eberly Farms in west Wichita.  This day camp provides a therapeutic environment in a fun setting that is both safe and accepting for children and teens (ages 7-12 and 13-17).  The curriculum will explore normal grief responses and will help children to understand and express their own feelings.  Contact Ruth Knouf at Hospice, Inc. for registration information at (316) 219-1793 or toll-free at (800) 767-4965. 

*   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.