Let's talk Turkey?
Nov. 24
2015
 


Let's Talk Turkey. Not cooking advice, but here are 5 great resources to get you started to talk about advance care planning over the holidays, starting with Thanksgiving gatherings. As your loved ones gather from far and wide don't miss the opportunity to have a real conversation about your wishes for end-of-life care.

1. Starter Kit from The Conversation Project -
download the PDF file or visit our website for more information.   This easy to follow Kit can get you talking about decision making and following wishes, providing a way to get conversations going before you get to the Advance Directive or POLST.  

2.  Contribute to  Story Corps' "The great Thanksgiving Listen". This Thanksgiving weekend,
StoryCorps will work with teachers and high school students across the country to preserve the voices and stories of an entire generation of Americans over a single holiday weekend.

3. Discuss and Complete an Advance Directive with your loved ones - all the materials are on the
KM website.  Notice we now have buttons on each webpage for Advance Directives and POLST for easy and quick access! 

4. Laugh a bit with 
Pallimed's compilation of advertisements again designed to get you talking. Remember as you celebrate the holidays, there is no better time to have the conversation.

5.  Watch some movies and play some games to get the conversations going.  We created a (PDF)
handout with a compilation of some suggested key resources. 
 
Wed. 12/2 Palliative Pupus

Please join us Wed. Dec. 2 for the Palliative Pupus. This month we will hear about a man's spiritual and existential distress and the ways the palliative care providers facilitated his and his family's coming to terms with his last weeks of life.

Come hear an interactive interdisciplinary story from the cutting edge of hospice and palliative care and mingle with colleagues.   

Wed. Dec. 2, 2015
5:15 to 7:00 PM
The Queens Conference Center (QCC) Room 200
510 S. Beretania Street, Honolulu, HI 96813

Please bring some pupus to share and invite your colleagues. This is a great chance for people who wonder what palliative and hospice care really looks like as we describe and discuss a real person and their journey.

Please note Palliative Pupus participants: There is FREE parking after 4 PM in the municipal lot on South Beretania, just Diamond Head of Queen's. See our website for a map.
 
Thur. 12/3 Kokua Mau Meeting

We hope you can join us December 3. This is the last Kokua Mau Monthly Meeting of the year.  We will have 2 presentations.

Dr. Ritabelle Fernandes and Jody Mishan will be presenting about the new grant the UH Center on Aging has received on dementia and be asking for our feedback. 

Additionally we will have a presentation on the Kaiser Permanente SWITCH program.

Presenters:  Aleza Matayoshi, MD, Continuing Care Physician, Medical Director; Medicare
Walt Schroeder, Pharm.D., BCPS
Director; Transition and Senior Care Strategy

SWITCH (Social Wellbeings' Impact To Care & Health) is a care delivery movement to prioritize member preferences in medical care delivery.  The work centers around "knowing the member first and treating them second."  Social Work Navigators are paired with frail, elderly members to learn about their priorities for care and what matters most to them.  Navigators facilitate interdisciplinary team discussions with the member's primary care physician, nurse, pharmacist, and home health representatives to develop a comprehensive social and medical treatment plan.  This work also involves collaborating with community resources to transform the way healthcare partners with the community to support member wellness. 

Thursday, Dec 3, 2015
3pm-5pm
Conference Room 224
Weinberg Building
St. Francis Healthcare System of Hawai'i
2226 Liliha Street in Honolulu

Reminder: Remember we combine the November and December meetings into one, due to Thanksgiving and the Holidays. Please join us again January 28 in a brand new 2016.  

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

In this Issue and from Past Newsletters:
Myths and Facts about Advance Healthcare Directives

In case you are looking for a good article for your organizations' newsletter or need a handout for clients, here is a good article called Myths and Facts about advance healthcare directives.  You can find the complete article here

The article is written by Charlie Sabatino who has been involved with this issue for many years and is a well-respected national voice.

Resource: On-line continuing ed in Palliative Care

Are you looking for continuing education courses; or skills-building with on-line courses related to Palliative Care?

The California State Institute for Palliative Care offers well-regarded instructor-led online courses as well as self-paced courses for nurses, chaplains, social workers, and other health care professionals working in palliative care. Link to the courses.

Advance Care Planning Speakers wanted!
 
Wanted: People interested in speaking in the community about Advance Care Planning. Kōkua Mau is getting more and more requests for presentations from community groups and we would like to expand the number of speakers we can send out to meet face-to-face.

We will train you and give you materials but you should have a good understanding of the topic and be comfortable talking to groups. If you are interested in helping, let Jeannette know as our first training will be November 10.

Aloha United Way Giving 2015

Please remember us in your Aloha United Way giving.  For the first time you can make a contribution specifically to Kōkua Mau by using our designation number 80410 on the Donor Designation Form (or the new online version).  

Please tell your colleagues, friends and loved ones who might be part of an AUW campaign as well. The coconut wireless is still the best way to spread the word about this new opportunity for Kōkua Mau.
 
New video - POLST: Doing it Better

POLST: Doing it Better is a new free POLST Video (7 Min 22 sec) available from the National POLST office. This excellent short video nicely summarizes the essentials of POLST.  Please share the link with your colleagues.  

We'd also like your feedback. Do you feel we need an additional video just for Hawaii on POLST and if so what information is missing?  
Fast Facts of key palliative care topics

The Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC) is a national organization dedicated to increasing the availability of quality palliative care services for people facing serious illness.

Palliative in Practice:  A blog discussing pertinent issues across the full spectrum of palliative care. Sign up for free

Fast Facts provide peer-reviewed, evidence-based summaries of key palliative care topics. Each Fast Fact is printer-friendly and free.  View them all at https://www.capc.org/fast-facts/

Choosing Wisely�

Choosing Wisely�, a campaign of Consumer Reports, to provide resources for consumers and physicians to engage in important conversations about the overuse or misuse of medical tests and procedures that provide unnecessary and potentially harmful medical care.  This excellent campaign has suggestions from a wide range of professionals organizations and very relevant for our work.
 
Video: Ain't no way to die

This is an amazing video by ZDoggMD, Rapper and MD. Watch it through to the very end (only 4 minutes). Ain't no way to die

ZDoggMD is a physician, off-white rapper, and the founder of Turntable Health. He's not a businessman.  A hospitalist at Stanford for almost 10 years, Dr. Z currently resides in Las Vegas-a city he finds simply adorable.  More and a list
off all his videos including one on Readmissions.

16-Page Kokua Mau Booklet

Thank you to all of you who contacted us and are already using the updated booklet!

Our 16-page Kokua Mau booklet "A Guide to Advance Care Planning: Making Life Decisions" has been re-printed.

A big big mahalo to Mountain-Pacific Quality Health for their generous sponsorship of printing 40,000 copies!  

Now available with updated wording, the new booklet reflects 2014 changes to POLST which added APRNs as signers.

It is our hope that, for instance, every Medicare recipient will have access to the booklet. We encourage you to make good use of this excellent resource and distribute it widely within your network.

Please contact us and let us know how many copies you would like so we can work out how to best get them to you.  

Best wishes,

Jeannette Koijane
Executive Director
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