Aging and End-of-Life Care
The Center for Practical Bioethics is a nationally recognized voice in aging and end-of-life care. The Center’s innovative programs and broadly based coalitions focus on policy reform, professional education, and citizen engagement. The Center’s current work focuses on advance care planning, balanced pain policies, and pediatric palliative care.
John Carney is the Center’s vice president for Aging and End of Life. He can be reached at (816)221-1100, Ext 220, or aging@practicalbioethics.org.
For more information, click below:
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Caring Conversations ®— the Center's program that helps families make practical preparations for end-of-life decisions.
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The Center and Advance Directives
YouTube Video
June 26, 2008
The Center’s role in developing advance directives and promoting their use nationwide is noted in this video. It was presented at the Center’s annual dinner April 16. Our thanks to the Local Investment Commission (LINC) in Kansas City for their assistance.
In the News
Center tracking end of life provisions in Kansas and Missouri law
Proposed law revamps end-of-life law in Kansas; draft regulations influence out-of hospital do not resuscitate provisions in Missouri
February 2009
Officials in Kansas and Missouri are considering provisions which would streamline end of life care decision making and specify preferences for care outside of a hospital.
The 2009 Kansas Legislature is considering House Bill 2109, which would create and consolidate various legal procedures for adults to direct health care decisions and appoint surrogates to act on their behalf.
In Missouri state officials are crafting language for regulations to enact the Outside the Hospital Do-Not-Resuscitate Act. Passed in 2007, the law requires a do not resuscitate (DNR) order to be on the first page of the medical record for a patient residing in a facility, among other provisions.
John Carney, the Center’s Vice President of Aging and End of Life, and Bill Colby, Senior Fellow, Law and Patient Rights at the Center, are working with legislators and officials in both states to ensure families can make practical preparations for end-of-life decisions.
Links:
Center reports to Kansas Judicial Council on state end-of-life laws
June 12, 2008
Bill Colby, the Center’s Senior Fellow, Law and Patient Rights, presented a report to the Kansas Judicial Council on June 6 in Topeka on proposed changes to Kansas end-of-life laws. The report comes from the work over the last two years of the 15-member Judicial Council End of Life Decisions Advisory Committee.
John Carney, the Center's vice president for aging and end of life, serves on that Committee as well. Presenting to the Judicial Council along with Bill was Judge Anthony Powell from Wichita.
The Advisory Committee work, like work going on in many legislatures around the country now, grew from the public discussion of the Florida case of Terri Schiavo in 2005. The Committee brought together a variety of viewpoints from across the state of Kansas – disability rights advocates, doctors, long term care, right to life, legislators and judges.
Discussions were often emotional, yet always civil. The Center played a role of facilitator, information gatherer and provider, historian, and sometimes mediator.
Ultimately, the Committee used the national Uniform Health-Care Decisions Act as a model for revamping Kansas law. The proposed new law is an important step forward for Kansas in this area.
Importantly, it brings together several former laws into one Act, and one place. It provides flexibility for using a variety of forms not a single state-mandated form, while preserving special protections for decisions about nutrition and hydration provided through medical intervention, which many on the Committee believed important.
And the new law adds important surrogacy provisions which provide guidance for making decisions when no document exists.
Discussion of the proposed law should come before the legislature in early 2009.
