Aloha Kokua Mau, 

Remember November is Hospice and Palliative Care month and a great chance to honor all who do this work in our community!  Thank you for all the work you do.

If you haven't already completed the Kokua Mau survey, thank you for taking a few minutes to help us and share your feedback.  Please join us for the last Kōkua Mau meeting of the year on December 4 when Robert Eubanks from HMSA will be giving us an update on Supportive Care and the ACP Decisions videos. 

And save Sat. Jan. 17 in the afternoon for the Kōkua Mau Holiday party - in time for Asian New Year!

Parking is validated and click here for a map and further details.  There will be real coffee and refreshments as well.

"A new video campaign gives patients a voice on treatment options" by Susan Essoyan was a front page article in the Star Advertiser from Sept. 29.  This article outlines the ACP Decisions videos, which many facilities around the state are using to facilitate conversations on treatment issues.  You can read more about these short videos at acpdecisions.org and contact Robert Eubanks at HMSA if you are interested in getting the videos for your facility.  HMSA is paying for the license for facilities across the state so there is no cost to you. 

The article is available on-line (but you need to be a subscriber to get full access). Please contact us if you would like a PDF copy of the article.

 

 

Ellen Goodman, co-founder of The Conversation Project, gave a wonderful TEDx talk at iconic Faneuil Hall in Boston, Massachusetts. "A Good Death or a Hard One--Let's Talk" drew a full house. She talked about the importance of having the conversation, and how close we are to changing the cultural norm from not talking about death and end-of-life care, to talking about it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbWcLYOniWU

 

 

No matter what your story, they invite you to share it on the interactive "Your Story" feature on The Conversation Project's website.  After all, your story could help someone else facing a similar situation.

 

 

Congratulations as well to Melissa Champlin, RN, CHPN, for being honored as a Hawaii Healthcare Hero by the Healthcare Association of Hawaii. Melissa is an enthusiastic Kōkua Mau member and works as the Patient Care Manager with Hospice Hawai`i-Lana`i. 

Kōkua Mau has an easy to understand 2-side Advance Directive that is used by facilities around the state.

We are in the process of updating the form and will let you know when the new form is ready. The old form will still be valid.

Web Conference Briefing: The Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC) hosted a very interesting and informative web conference on Oct. 28, with Diane E. Meier, MD, one of the nation's leaders in palliative care.   She discussed the Institute of Medicine's latest report in depth and presented the report in a practical and action-oriented way. The full presentation and slide deck used are currently available for free download. It is interesting to see how many of the IOM report's recommendations we are working on in Hawaii.  More about the IOM Report at the bottom of this newsletter.

National HealthCare Decisions Day is 5 months away and an opportunity "to inspire, educate & empower the public & providers about the importance of advance care planning."

Now is the time to start planning for an event at your facility or organization. Visit their website for lots of good tools to get you started including press releases, posters, letters to stakeholders, etc. http://www.nhdd.org/tools/

And let us know what you are doing so you can inspire others. 

In his bestselling books, Atul Gawande, a practicing surgeon, has fearlessly revealed the struggles of his profession. Now he examines its ultimate limitations and failures - in his own practices as well as others' - as life draws to a close. And he discovers how we can do better.

 

On Friday September 12, 2014 Hawaii Public Radio aired an interview with Jeannette Koijane on Kōkua Mau for their Helping Hands segment.  You can hear the 5 minute interview at: 

http://hpr2.org/post/helping-hand-kokua-mau

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) has released an extensive, book-length report on the state of end-of-life care in the United States today, providing a number of recommendations for how to move the field forward in the years to come. The 507-page document, titled "Dying in America," was funded by a $1.5 million anonymous donation, and has been spurred by the "death panel" controversy surrounding end-of-life care that emerged during the debates surrounding the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The report concludes that the US medical system as it stands is ill prepared to provide the end-of-life care that Americans need, and that there exists a significant discrepancy between the care that individuals receive at the end of life and what they actually desire.

We have included links here to key portions of the report which show that Hawaii is on the right track for improving care at the end of life although we all have much work to do.