Executive Director Jennifer Moore Ballentine
Leading the CSU Institute for Palliative Care is Executive Director Jennifer Moore Ballentine, drawing on her deep experience and accomplishments in palliative care education and advocacy to help expand and advance the reach of palliative care on a global scale.
Jennifer developed a passion for palliative and end-of-life care after a long career as an academic and professional book producer on topics ranging from artificial intelligence to healthcare/health science to theology.
Inspired by her work as a patient-care volunteer for Porter Hospice in Denver, she earned a Master’s degree in End-of-Life Studies from Regis University, and joined the Colorado Center for Hospice and Palliative Care as Director of Programs.
She later became Executive Director of the Life Quality Institute, a professional learning organization focused on embedding palliative care content into medical, nursing, and allied health curricula and providing comprehensive skills-based education to working clinicians. At LQI she contributed to the creation and delivery of more than 700 innovative, evidence-based programs across a variety of learning platforms to reach more than 20,000 participants.
Her advocacy and leadership made a lasting impact across the state. From 2010 to 2017, Jennifer chaired the Colorado Advance Directives Consortium, which reviewed and overhauled the state’s advance directive statutes and established the Medical Orders for Scope of Treatment (POLST paradigm) program via legislative act.
Relocating to California in 2015, Jennifer provided professional consulting services to clients such as Hospice Analytics, the Alliance of Catholic Health Care, and the Institute for Human Caring, founded by palliative care champion Dr. Ira Byock. During that time she also served as guest faculty and a course author for the CSU Institute for Palliative Care.
Jennifer became Executive Director of the Institute in September 2017, following a months-long national search that began when founding Executive Director Helen McNeal announced her planned retirement.
Over the past 17 years Jennifer has published a dozen articles on palliative and end-of-life care in peer-reviewed journals and trade journals; delivered more than 200 workshops, Grand Rounds, webinars, and in-services; developed, planned and executed 14 local, state, and national conferences; and created 5 comprehensive multi-part educational programs.
She has also served as an active member, and on committees or the Board of Directors, for a number of state and national organizations including the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization, the Colorado Healthcare Ethics Forum, the National POLST Advisory Taskforce, and the Center for Improving Value in Health Care.