Palliative Care Best Practices:
A Guide for Long-Term Care and Hospice
Published by the Center for Improving Value in Health Care, this comprehensive manual addresses advance care planning and advance directives, pain and symptom management, spiritual and emotional issues, death practices and bereavement support for families and facility staff.
New Resources for Palliative Care and Advance Care Planning
A booklet explaining Colorado's advance directives in plain language, Your Right to Make Health Care Decisions, is available in English or Spanish. These booklets contain forms for the Medical Power of Attorney, Living Will, and CPR Directive, and provide additional information on the Medical Orders for Scope of Treatment and organ donation.
Upcoming Events in Palliative Care Education:
Fill in the GAPS: Education for Informal and Professional Caregivers
A six-part series (take one, several or all) to equip caregivers with the tools they need to plan for, understand, and manage the impact of serious illness. Workshops are held at several different locations on different dates for your convenience: Exempla Lutheran Medical Center (Wheat Ridge), First Universalist Church (Denver) and at various Brookdale senior residence locations. See our Presentations page for details.
Colorado’s Source for Comprehensive Palliative Care Education
In our culture, we find it difficult to talk about death as a natural part of life. Often, patients with life-limiting illnesses and their care teams avoid the subject and thus may fail to embrace palliative care. Choosing palliative care offers an opportunity to improve the quality of care over the course of illness – and thereby enhance quality of life.
Effective palliative care requires a knowledgeable team
Each member of the palliative care team is an equal partner, with the patient and their family controlling the care decisions. As a member of the palliative care team, you might be a physician, nurse, hospital discharge planner, or other healthcare provider. You may be a chaplain, minister, social worker, volunteer, or home healthcare or hospice caregiver. Or you may be the patient or a family member, friend, or neighbor.
Whatever your role on the care team, you will benefit from education on all aspects of palliative care.
We invite you to review our presentations, programs, and conferences to increase your understanding of palliative care and improve the care you provide to each patient challenged by an advanced disease.
Knowledge empowers and enriches – Life Quality Institute is your source for palliative care education.
Life Quality Institute advances the understanding and quality of palliative care through education. Our educational topics include:
- Assessing and healing spiritual pain
- Understanding grief and the mourning process
- Discerning professional boundaries for healthcare workers
- Managing common and distressing symptoms in advanced illness
- Developing a community of care to share the journey
- Understanding advance directives and surrogate healthcare decision making
- Mitigating pain and related symptoms
© 2010 Life Quality Institute