These websites, organizations and audio broadcasts offer a wealth of information about end-of-life care and palliative care, such as advance care planning, hospice, home care, long-term care and aging with dignity.
Massachusetts
- Better Ending Partnership - Information and materials from this Central Massachusetts initiative can help you plan in advance for serious illness and assure your final wishes.
- Honoring Choices Massachusetts - Working together to ensure your health care choices are understood and honored all through your life.
- Hospice and Palliative Care Federation of Massachusetts
- INTERACT II - Resources for the early identification, assessment, documentation and communication about changes in status of skilled nursing facility residents to reduce the frequency of potentially avoidable transfers to acute care facilities.
- Massachusetts Commission on End-of-Life Care
- Massachusetts Department of Public Health
- Massachusetts Executive Office of Elder Affairs
- Massachusetts Medical Society
- Massachusetts Office of Emergency Medical Services
- Senior Connections - Central Massachusetts Area Agency on Aging
- The Massachusetts Family Caregiver Handbook - Find tips here for finding elder care resources in Massachusetts.
National
- National POLST Taskforce
- Advance Directives and Advance Care Planning Report - from the Secretary of HHS to Congress. The report focuses on: 1) the best ways to promote the use of advance directives and advance care planning among competent adults as a way to specify their wishes about end-of-life care; and 2) addressing the needs of persons with disabilities with respect to advance directives.
- Aging with Dignity - This organization offers advice on making health care decisions and what you want your loved ones to know.
- Caring Connections - This program of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization offers free, multilingual resources and information for people making end-of-life care decisions before a crisis.
- Center for Practical Bioethics - This site offers help for patients and their families, health care professionals, policymakers and corporate leaders who are struggling with ethically complex issues in medicine and research.
- The Conversation Project - This project (and website) is "dedicated to helping people talk about their wishes for end-of-life care" and includes a Starter Kit to help individuals have "the conversation."
- ELNEC Core Training - Educational materials from the Hospice & Palliative Nurses Association, for nurses and members of interdisciplinary care teams (i.e., physicians, pharmacists, social workers, etc.) who want to increase their knowledge of end-of-life care and palliative care issues.
- The EPEC Curriculum Training Modules - Educational materials (with CMEs) from the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, for physicians and other health professionals who are engaged in palliative care education and clinical practice.
- The Schwartz Center for Compassionate Care - National nonprofit organization dedicated to strengthening the relationship between patients and their healthcare providers.
- PREPARE website - The PREPARE website is designed to help people and their loved ones prepare for medical decision making.
Articles and audio broadcasts
- WBUR 2010 Commonhealth article about MOLST in Massachusetts
- Choices About Life Sustaining Medical Treatments - 2010 article in Senior Connections about MOLST in Massachusetts