Facilitating an Advance Care Planning Conversation

Advance care planning conversations have not yet become a routine part of healthcare. The challenges inherent in conducting these conversations, the skills required to facilitate advance care planning conversations efficiently, and (until very recently) the lack of reimbursement are just some of the barriers. The comfort and ease with which patients, community members, cultural groups and providers are able to discuss or consider serious illness or death for themselves or a loved one varies widely.

The Coalition for Compassionate Care of California in partnership with The California State University Institute for Palliative Care created Facilitating an Advance Care Planning Conversation to help practitioners develop and practice the skills needed to initiate and facilitate an advance care planning conversation.

Click HERE to get the Brochure and join the interest list!

This course is ideal for:

• Physicians
• Physician assistants
• APRNs
• Nurses
• Social workers
• Geriatric care managers
• Discharge planners
• and Chaplains…

…working in primary care, acute care, long-term care, and home and community-based settings.

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1. Why have ACP Conversations? What do Healthcare professionals need to know before starting ACP? Download Your FREE Advance Care Planning Guide Here.

2. Get your guide to starting and continuing Advance Care Planning conversations for better patient outcomes and satisfaction. Download Your FREE Guide here.

3. Over 50% of physicians surveyed are uncomfortable having Advance Care Planning discussions. Download this FREE eBook and learn how to have more effective conversations with patients and families.

4. How can physicians properly bill for having Advance Care Planning conversations? Learn how in this FREE ACP Guide for Healthcare Professionals.

5. Confused about when and how to get reimbursed for ACP conversations? Download this FREE guide and learn more.

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Fast Facts

Begins:	Online courses are available immediately upon registration
Is taught:	Completely online, available 24/7
Offers:	1 Continuing Education Hour, CA BRN and BBS approved provider OR Click HERE for CME Credit Info*
Costs:	$149
Requires:	Computing skills sufficient to complete graduate work, access to a computer with an Internet connection.
Is ideal for:	Physicians, physician assistants, APRNs, nurses, social workers, geriatric care managers, discharge planners, and chaplains working in all care settings

CME Credits

The Doctors Company designates this activity for a maximum of 1 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the accreditation requirements and policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) through the joint providership of The Doctors Company and California State University Institute for Palliative Care. The Doctors Company is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

Course Information

Learning Objectives/Faculty

Advance care planning conversations need to be grounded in the personal beliefs, unique culture and life values of the individual doing the planning. Focusing on personal goals and values allows us to discuss outcomes that are meaningful to the patient and to help them choose treatments or care plans that support that focus.

Throughout this course participants will learn skills needed to conduct advance care planning discussions from a person-centered perspective. Strategies for promoting advance care planning to people at varying stages of life are explored so that the practitioner can engage healthy patients as well as those living with a chronic or serious illness. Given the interested in and emerging access to physician assisted suicide, the course explores potential responses to patients who express an interest in a hastened death.

Case vignettes are presented to allow the participant to simulate the experience of starting a conversation, engaging family members, and overcoming barriers discovered during the advance care planning process.

Learning Objectives:

At the conclusion of Facilitating an Advance Care Planning Conversation students will be able to:

• Identify the skills needed to engage in effective advance care planning conversations
• Describe the importance of advance care planning conversations in the context of physician assisted dying
• Know how to start advance care planning conversations
• Practice an advance care planning conversation

Course Faculty:

Judy Thomas, JD: is the CEO of the Coalition for Compassionate Care of California (CCCC), and an attorney who has worked in healthcare for more than 20 years.

Before working with the CCCC, Judy was a lobbyist for LeadingAge of California and the California Hospital Association, where she focused on aging and long-term supports and services. She was formerly a partner in the Sacramento-based law firm of Hunter, Richey, Di Benedetto & Brewer, where she specialized in healthcare law. And before law school, Judy was a computer programmer for the nation’s first preferred provider organization.

Judy is the Chair of the National POLST Paradigm Task Force and Past President of the California Culture Change Coalition.

Lael C. Duncan, MD: is a licensed California physician with more than 15 years of clinical practice in internal medicine, infectious disease, and long term acute care for patients with multi-system disease. Before joining the Coalition for Compassionate Care of California (CCCC) in 2014 as Medical Director of Consulting Services, Lael served the organization for four years as a passionate volunteer.

After graduating with honors from the University of Washington Medical School in 1991, Lael did her residency training at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center. She is board certified in both Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases. Lael has practice experience with inpatient and outpatient care, Hospital Epidemiology and Infection Control, Long Term Care, and Rehabilitation following critical illness.

Shirley Otis-Green, MSW, ACSW, OSW-C: is the Clinical Director of Consulting Services with the Coalition for Compassionate Care of California, a Research Consultant for the Psychosocial Oncology Specialization Program at the University of Louisville, Kent School of Social Work, and the founder of Collaborative Caring.

Shirley’s education, research and consultation efforts focus on quality-of-life, palliative care, leadership development and the creation of meaningful organizational change. Her work is dedicated to enhancing excellence in the delivery of culturally-congruent, person-centered and family-focused inter-professional care through the implementation of effective learning principles.

She has been the Principal Investigator on studies with over $3.3 million in external funding, including the ACE Project and ExCEL in Social Work. Her work has been recognized with numerous awards and disseminated through more than 100 publications and 400 professional presentations.

Shirley serves on several editorial boards (including the Journal of Palliative Medicine) and professional boards (including the National Association of Social Work), is a Distinguished Social Work Practitioner in the National Academies of Practice, and is co-editor of the Oxford Textbook of Palliative Social Work.

Course Information