Committed to Improving Care of the Dying

What Is The Coalition?

The Connecticut Coalition to Improve End-of-Life Care was founded in 1998 to develop a comprehensive approach to improving the care and support of dying patients and their families during the end of life and bereavement periods.

Since the Coalition began in 1998, there have been over 100 members including government agencies, community groups, schools of nursing, medical schools, long term care providers, home health care and hospice providers and individuals committed to realizing the Coalition’s mission. The Coalition is actively sponsored by the Connecticut Departments of Social Services and Public Health. It is funded through grants, donations and membership dues.

Mission

The mission of the Connecticut Coalition to Improve End-of-Life Care is to improve the care of people who are dying and their families in the state of Connecticut and to ensure that every individual has information about and access to compassionate, quality end-of-life care.

The Coalition’s primary objectives in fulfilling its mission are to:

  • Identify, disseminate and promote education on end-of-life care for health care professionals, the general pubic and policy makers;

  • Encourage the translation of research in end-of-life care into practice;

  • Promote effective end-of-life care through public policy.

 

To see the bylaws of the Coalition, click here

2011 Highlights

 

In September of 2010, the Coalition submitted two grant proposals in response to Request for Proposal # 2011-0908, made possible by a CT Cancer Partnership grant from the CT Department of Public Health in support of the CT Cancer Plan 2009-2013.  Both proposals were accepted. The proposals are in response to the recommendations of a 2008 grant to the Coalition (see below), also funded by the DPH, to perform a survey to identify unmet learning needs of health care providers.  ur first proposal is to implement an End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium (ELNEC)-Geriatric train the trainer program.  The second proposal is to implement a geriatric training based on the ELNEC curriculum for the whole interdisciplinary team. 

 

The Train the Trainer committee began working early in 2011 to plan a two day conference that took place on October 20 and 21st at the Crowne Plaza in Cromwell.  50 nurses attended and successfully completed the training.  At the end of the 2 day training, participant identified 3 goals for improving end of life care within their institutions over the coming year. Progress towards these goals will be followed up at 6 and 12 months after the conference as well as other data to identify the effectiveness of the training. 

 

The interdisciplinary geriatric training committee started working on planning two conferences for 2012.  Some of the nurses who attended the train the trainer conference have expressed interest in sending members of their team to one or both of these conferences to help them implement their goals.  The first conference will take place April 20, 2012 at the Crown Plaza in Cromwell.  The second will take place October 29, 2012, place to be determined.

 

An area we would like to focus on in 2012 is pediatric end-of-life care.  This was reflected in our annual meeting on December 7th with the keynote presentation by Eileen O’Shea, DPN, RN entitled, “Understanding Pediatric Palliative Care:  What it is and what it should be.”  We encourage anyone to get in touch with Eileen via the Coalition if your facility/institution would like more information or a presentation in this area, which is often neglected due to the much larger number of older patients at end of life. 

 

Web-Based Survey to Assess Unmet EOL Educational Needs

 Among Connecticut Health Care Providers

 

 In 2008, the CT Department of Public Health funded three grants submitted by the Connecticut Coalition to Improve End-of-Life Care in support of the Connecticut Cancer Plan.  The first was to develop and administer a web-based survey. The purpose of the survey was to identify the educational needs of health care professionals who provide end-of-life care in Connecticut in order to inform the design of educational initiatives. The 659 participants included nurses, nurses’ aides, physicians, social workers, pharmacists, chaplains, funeral directors, and administrators.

 

Identified needs included help dealing with cultural and spiritual matters at the end of life, and having supportive resources at work. Older age and more years in practice were associated with adequate education in both end-of-life communication and overall knowledge of end-of-life care, as well as with adequate knowledge to care for the dying. Focus groups with health care professionals confirmed survey results and highlighted the need for emotional processing of end-of-life issues to enhance personal and professional comfort.

 

The second grant was to provide professional educational seminars and conferences addressing palliative and end-of-life care for health providers, including physicians, nurses, social workers and spiritual counselors.  The title of the third grant was:  “Connecticut Prison Hospice, A Model of Collaboration for Education and Training.”  The overall goal of this project was to increase the number of trained inmate hospice volunteers in the Connecticut Prison Hospice Program and to evaluate existing prison hospice programs in three facilities of operation.

 

Click here for a copy of the final report of all three grants, submitted to the State by Ruth McCorkle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

April 20, 2012 and October 19, 2012

CARING FOR THE ELDERLY AT END OF LIFE:

AN INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACH

based on the End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium (ELNEC)--Geriatric curriculum

NURSING CONTACT HOURS AND SOCIAL WORKER CE'S WILL BE OFFERED

Click here for more information

Click here for postcard announcement

Application has been submitted to the Yale School of Nursing (YSN) for approval of nursing continuing education credit (Contact Hours). YSN is an approved provider of Continuing Nursing Education by the Connecticut Nurses’ Association, an Accredited Approver by the American Nurses’ Credentialing Center’s Commission on Accreditation.

Application has been submitted to National Association for Social Work/CT for Social Work continuing education credits (CEC).

Made possible by a Connecticut Cancer Partnership grant from the Connecticut Department of Public Health in support of the CT Cancer Plan, 2009-2013

 

The CT Coalition to Improve End of Life Care is now on Facebook! See what we are doing and become a fan.

 

Order Updated Coalition Booklet Today

The Connecticut Coalition to Improve End-of-Life Care has updated their booklet entitled "Beginning the Conversation about Death, Dying and End-of-Life Care in Connecticut" and has recently reduced the cost to $5/copy. Please click here for the purchase order form.

 

Department of Public Health Awards two Grants to the Coalition

 

The Coalition submitted two proposals in response to RFP #2011-0908 both of which were selected. 

 

The Option B proposal is to organize, implement, evaluate and disseminate a two-day train the trainer ELNEC geriatric end-of-life training.

The Option C proposal is to organize, implement and evaluate two one-day conferences based on the ELNEC Geriatric curriculum.

Both proposals incorporate recommendations of the Coalition's 2008/2009 Assessing the Unmet Needs of Health Care Providers Using a Web-based Survey.