HOV wins top award from statewide hospice group

HOV wins top award from statewide hospice group

Hospice of the Valley's grant-funded teaching program for health-care professionals was presented the Excellence in End-of-Life Care Award Oct. 16, 2009 by the Arizona Hospice and Palliative Care Organization, a nonprofit membership organization of hospice and palliative programs and professionals.

The program was lauded for its innovation; raising the standard of care; serving as a model for the profession and creating awareness of the importance of excellent end-of-life care.

HOV developed the model program in 2006 to train all family practice, internal medicine and pediatric resident physicians at Maricopa County teaching hospitals about palliative and end-of-life care. Since then the education program has grown to include fellowships and training for psychiatry and surgery residents, hospitalists, medical students, nurses, social workers and chaplains.

Community health-care professionals shadow members of the hospice team, learning what each team member's role brings to patient care. They observe patient care in palliative care units and at patients' homes, take online courses, and share what they have learned with one another. The goals are to teach palliative and comfort care principles and techniques; to improve communication skills with patients and to enhance understanding of end-of-life care.

Funded by Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust, the programs have won national recognition. Gillian Hamilton, MD, PhD, vice president for educational programming, and Vicki Hochstetler, administrative director of medical education, gave a presentation in March to the annual meeting of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine. As Piper Trust's initial grant funding for each unique segment ends, Hospice of the Valley sustains the program for the future.

The award was presented at AHPCO's annual conference at the Fiesta Resort Conference Center in Tempe. The organization was founded in 1982 to advance quality end-of-life care (www.ahpco.org).

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