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ACP and Serious Illness On-Demand Webinars

ACP and Serious Illness On-Demand Webinars

Improving Serious Illness Care for Critical Access Communities

With speakers Caroline Hurd, MD, of UW/Harborview, and Sharmon Figenshaw, ARNP. People in rural areas of Washington with serious illness may not have access to a comprehensive range of palliative care and hospice services. This webinar helps teams think through how they might better support their patients at the primary care level with some high-yield palliative care skills, and how to access training for these skills. We also explore models for delivering important supportive care, with examples of using team members of diverse professional backgrounds, who can, with training, provide effective supportive care for individuals with serious illness in critical access areas of the state. Co-sponsored by Whitman Hospital & Medical Clinics, with a grant from Friends of Hospice of the Palouse, and the Washington Serious Illness Care Coalition.

(Originally recorded on Dec. 5, 2024)

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POLST Conversation Guidance for Clinicians

Join the Washington Serious Illness Care Coalition for a free two-part webinar series on clinician guidance for discussing Portable Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment with your patients.

Part 1, Sept. 12: “When, and How, to Know if POLST is Right for My Patient”

Ginny Heinitz, palliative care registered nurse for Virginia Mason, discusses when and how to use POLST. You will learn how, when properly completed, the POLST form can effectively guide emergency care. She also discusses some pitfalls and mistakes to avoid.

You will learn how to identify patients who might benefit from a POLST and how to assess their readiness to discuss their preferences for life-prolonging care. You will see how to use your clinical expertise to build rapport and normalize the conversations that can help patients be ready for your recommendation to complete a POLST.

(Originally recorded on Sept. 12, 2024)

Part 2: “May I Recommend…?”

Sharmon Figenshaw, ARNP, discusses how to make recommendations related to POLST for your patients who will benefit from having this form completed to provide orders for emergency care. As a follow-up to part one, this webinar offers guidance on how you as the clinician can make the choices in Section B of the POLST form accessible to your patients, and how you can use the choices of Section B to simplify (and make less scary) the choices in Section A (Full Code vs DNAR).

There is a demonstration of how to ask questions that help your patients think about what levels of care (from Section B) they would find acceptable, and how to use your clinical expertise and judgement in helping patients address how to have more control over the care they receive at the end of their lives. You will see how to use the POLST Clinician Guide to ensure that the POLST forms you complete are valid and actionable for your patients.

(Originally recorded on Sept. 26, 2024)

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New Washington State Advance Directive and other Advance Care Planning Resources

Overview of the changes to the WA state advance directive, now a WSMA supported form, and other valuable resources to help capture a person’s preferences for care in serious illness, at end of life and after death.

Offered by Hilary Walker, System ACP Program Manager PeaceHealth and Chair WSICC with other special guests

(Originally recorded on June 13, 2024)

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POLST and Advance Care Planning in Washington State: Where We Are Now

Sharmon Figenshaw, ARNP, palliative care nurse practitioner and co-chair of the Washington POLST Task Force, and Hilary Walker, OTL, Chair or WA Serious Illness Care Coalition and Program Coordinator for Advance Care Planning with PeaceHealth Medical System, review state wide initiatives, updates and resources that physicians, advanced practitioners, and other members of the health care team can access to promote advance care planning and goals of care conversations.

They offer insights into “the right document, at the right time, for the right person” and invite participation in open discussion about how advance care planning documents and POLST are currently being used in your medical systems.

(Originally recorded on Feb. 29, 2024)

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Recognizing Inequities in Serious Illness and End-of-Life Care

Physicians, health care professionals, and members of the public join together for a webinar on enhancing communication and connection about serious illness, end-of-life, and after-death issues—presented by the Washington Serious Illness Care Coalition.

Hope Wechkin, MD, FAAHPM, HMDC—WSICC chair and medical director of EvergreenHealth Hospice— re-introduces the coalition and its new mission, vision, values, and strategic goals.

Keynote speaker, Edwin Lindo, JD—assistant dean for social and health justice in the Office of Healthcare Equity and faculty member within the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine—explores our biases and identify ways racism impacts the care patients receive. You will develop tools to advocate for people from marginalized communities, provide culturally sensitive care that honors people’s values and beliefs, and deliver high quality, compassionate care during serious illness and at the end of life.

We close the webinar with a panel of physicians, health care professionals, and advocates who share their unique expertise and discuss how to ensure that people of every background, culture, and identity can have their needs met and their wishes explored and honored.

Panelists

  • Mabel Bodell, MD, Nephrologist/Transplant Nephrologist, Clinical Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine/University of Washington; Medical Director, Acute Dialysis Unit, Confluence Health, Wenatchee
  • Raleigh Bowden, MD, Director, Okanogan Palliative Care Initiative; Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar, 2019-2022
  • Eze Oluo, Projects Manager, Permanente Medicine; Member, BIPOC Health Careers Ecosystem
  • Moderator: Devyani Chandran, PhD, Director, Palliative Care Institute; Associate Professor, Health and Community Studies, Western Washington University

WSICC, formerly known as the Washington End-of-Life Coalition, was formed in the early 1990s, and is jointly sponsored by the WSMA Foundation and the Washington State Hospital Association. The coalition is a broad-based group of individuals and organizations dedicated to helping patients, physicians, clinicians, and caregivers improve the way we prepare for and treat serious illness and end-of-life care. This free webinar serves as part of our mission to promote education and conversations about living and dying in Washington state.

(Originally recorded April 29, 2022)

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Advance Care Planning Documents – Get to Know the New Advance Directive and WA POLST

The new and improved Advance Directive and Washington POLST forms will be released in early April. Join Sue Bergmann, MBA, BSN, senior director of Honoring Choices Pacific Northwest; Sharmon Figenshaw, ARNP, co-chair of the WA POLST Task Force; and Jessica Martinson, director of continuing professional development at the WSMA for a tour of the new documents. Honoring people’s values, goals, and preferences is the cornerstone of our work. The purpose of Advance Directive and Washington POLST documents is to ensure people’s future medical decisions are accurately reflected in enforceable documents. Speakers review key changes that streamline, clarify, and modernize the documents.

(Originally recorded on April 7, 2021)

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