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Mission
Statement:
The
USC Sumter
Center
for End
of
Life Care
has been
formed
to provide leadership and professional and community education toward
improving
end of life care in Sumter, Lee,
Clarendon,
Kershaw,
&
Williamsburg
counties.
Contact
USC
Sumter
Center
for
End of Life Care,
telephone
803/938-3843 or
Jean Carrano
Director of
Distance
Education, at 803/938-3708
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Objectives
and Goals:
The Center will foster
collaboration
among various segments of the community and will facilitate educational
programs, public awareness campaigns, and other initiatives which will
result in improved end of life care for citizens of those
communities.
Collaborating entities will include, but not be limited to, the health
care providers, including hospitals, nursing homes and hospice
programs,
health care and legal professionals, aging and human services programs,
members of the faith community, public officials, and private citizens.
Background:
In 1998 the South Carolina
Collaborative on End of Life Care was formed. Funded by the Duke
Endowment, it was spearheaded by the South Carolina Health Alliance and
Hospice for the Carolinas. One of the primary goals of the first
year was to gain a better understanding of the status of end of life
care
in South Carolina. The work of the next 3-5 years will include
the
following goals:
1. To support improved
pain
management in all settings.
2. To promote excellence
in end of life care in the nursing home setting.
3. To improve the
quality
of palliative care through consumer and professional education.
4. To engage the public,
policy makers, regulators, health care providers, and the legal
community
in efforts to remove barriers to the provision of quality end of life
care
in South Carolina.
From
the four goals above, nine
“Call
to Action” efforts are underway in our state. These nine are as follows:
1. Developing and
distributing
a consumer's guide to pain management.
2. Developing pain as a
“Fifth Vital Sign” pilot project in hospitals, nursing homes and
community
health centers.
3. Supporting the
educational
and research efforts of the South Carolina Pain Initiative.
4. Increasing
utilization
of hospice care for residents of long term care facilities.
5. Improving advance
care
planning for residents of long term care facilities.
6. Convening regularly
scheduled
forums for dialogue among the state's regulatory and professional
licensing
boards.
7. Implementing a
multi-dimensional
public awareness campaign to increase advance care planning among
residents
of South Carolina.
8. Providing ongoing
educational
opportunities to health care professionals.
9. Engaging public
policy
makers in efforts to improve End of Life Care in South Carolina.
In the
Fall of 2000, USC Sumter
answered
this “Call to Action” by establishing a Center for End of Life
Care.
The work of the USC Sumter Center for EOLC will be tailored toward
local
needs in the five counties served by our campus. The USC Sumter
Center
for EOLC will encourage linkages with existing resources and programs,
bringing many of these into our geographical area. In addition to
USC Sumter’s efforts, other local efforts are underway in Aiken,
Spartanburg,
York, and Anderson counties.
Planned
Actions and Strategies:
- Seek formal approval of this new
Center
by submission of required paperwork to USC Columbia.
- Form Advisory committee
representative
of five county area served by our campus. Work toward formation
of
steering committees in each county.
- Hold information sharing
interest meeting(s)
at USC Sumter and in local counties among collaborating entities
identified
in the Mission Statement.
- Review and refine planned
actions and
strategies, prioritize issues and goals identified by assessment,
formal
and informal. Make adjustments as needed.
- Explore support for the Center,
both
cash and in-kind, i.e., “Macro Placement” from USC College of Social
Work,
August-May, 2 days a week. However, $3,000 more would allow for
graduate
assistantship for 3 days a week.
- Establish small working groups
to interface
with statewide initiatives.
- Host Summit on End of Life Care.
- Implement multi-dimensional
public awareness
campaign to increase Advanced Care Planning in five county area.
Hold “facilitator” training programs based on best practice standard in
the field, such as Gundersen Lutheran Medical Center in LaCrosse,
Wisconsin.
- Facilitate on-going educational
opportunities,
some with Continuing Education units for relicensure, and some for
non-credit
Continuing Education.
- Only two or three physicians
in state
are certified
- Hospice and Palliative Care
Board Certified
– Only four or five physicians in state are certified
- Don Saunders, M.D., Center for
Bioethicsand
Medical Humanities, Institute for Public Affairs at University of South
Carolina
- Nurses
- Nursing homes
- Discharge planners of
hospitals and
rehab facilities
- Schools
- Social Services
- Hospices
- Aging
- Retirement Centers
- Board of Social Work
Examiners:
- Social workers
- Duncan White, CEU Director,
College
of Social Work, 777-4666
- Pharmacists working in
health
care settings and drug stores
- Attorneys and
para-professionals:
- Robin F.Wilson, J.D., USC
School of
Law, Assistant Professor
- South Carolina Bar Health Care
Law Division:
- Accountants
- Tax implications
- Estate planning
- Members of the Faith
communities
- Ministerial Associations in
counties
- Support “Dying Well” project.
- Grief education.
- Death anniversaries
- Sending cards
- Psycho-social issues
- Inter-generational care
- Board of Funeral Services:
- Funeral home businesses and
directors
- Relicensure education
- Business and Industry,
Human Resources:
- Support groups for
employees
- Regulatory issues
- Ethical issues
- Federal/State/Local agencies
- County Councils of Aging.
- Board of Long Term Health
Care
Administrators:
- Private citizens education:
- Educational
professionals.
- South Carolina ETV – WRJA,
Wil Anderson,
local contact
- Clemson Extension
- Students
- Private citizen living alone
(inter-generational
care and in-home help)
Educational
Programming Topics:
- Advance
Care Planning “facilitator” training, and general education
workshops.
- Prepared
for death – more involved in living.
- Ouch!
At the end of life, color still divides by Richard
Payne,
Chief, Pain and Palliative Care Services at Memorial Sloan Kettering
Cancer
Center in New York.
- Final
Wishes: An End-of-Life Issues Seminar appropriate for
caregivers:
i.e. nurses, social workers, nursing home administrators, and/or
lawyers.
- Home
Alone: brochure listing available support services and
set-up
of local area networks, perhaps with faith communities.
Time
Line:
- Begin immediately and make
adjustments
as needed.
Physical
Location:
- Work out of office utilized by
Department
of Distance and Continuing Education.
- Later move “Center” as
additional space
becomes available.
