September 13, 2012
DC Appleseed has long been committed to improving the health of all residents in the National Capital area. In recent years, we’ve helped transform the District’s response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, helped persuade CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield to contribute more to community healthcare needs, and successfully advocated for strategies to reduce residents’ exposure to lead in the drinking water.
This week, we expanded this commitment with the launch of our Improving End-of-Life Care project.
As with our earlier projects, DC Appleseed’s Improving End-of-Life Care project is taking a balanced and thorough look at the way end-of-life care is given to people in the District. The project will investigate the legal, clinical, and cultural landscape that affects this care and examine best practices in other jurisdictions. We will then produce recommendations to address barriers that prevent patients from receiving the best quality end-of-life care consistent with their personal values and wishes. And, as always, we will work with policy makers, experts, and stakeholders to ensure that appropriate and effective change is implemented.
Addressing this issue has never been more important – as we face an aging population, increased pressure on the healthcare system to do more at reduced cost, and new and changing roles for healthcare providers, it is critical that we improve our end-of-life care delivery and decision-making systems.
We launched the project at a Breakfast Briefing earlier this week, where concerned funders, DC Appleseed Board members, and our pro bono project partners discussed how our work can have the greatest impact in improving the lives of DC residents and others in the region. You can find a one-page summary of this project along with a summary of our closely related Long Term Care Workforce project on our website.
You can follow our progress on this and all our work on twitter @DC_Appleseed. To help support this important work, you can make a fast, secure donation with your credit card by clicking here.
Sincerely,
Walter Smith
Executive Director
