This opinion was published in the Los Angeles Times en Español on Tuesday, May 17, 2022: “..El apoyo de Dolores Huerta fue fundamental para que se aprobara el End of Life Option Act de California en el 2015, y el Elizabeth Whitefield End of Life Options Act en el estado de Nuevo México. Estas leyes…

Read full article here. Delivering care in alignment with patient goals is a critical aspect of serious illness care. Eliciting and documenting high-risk patients’ goals, particularly in advance of a surgical procedure, is central to advanced care planning and definitionally good quality care. Achieving documentation of goals that truly reflect patient wishes as they face dynamically…

Every month, Compassion & Choices connects with communities nationwide to ensure that all people can access the information and resources they need to plan for their future healthcare and end-of-life experience. We are also committed to reaching healthcare providers in the U.S. to transform end-of-life care.  Through this new blog series, we’ll share where we’ve…

This piece originally appeared on the March 15, 2017 Health Affairs Blog During the past 20 years, the end-of-life care community has devoted its energy, resources, and time into developing the medical sub-specialty of palliative medicine and promoting integration of palliative modalities into treatment of advanced illness. Progress continues toward twin goals of providing relief from…

The following op-ed appeared in the New Jersey Record on January 14, 2018: With November’s elections behind us, the New Jersey’s new governor, Phil Murphy, and the Legislature are in a unique position to take on a pressing issue crucial to the residents of New Jersey – improving end-of-life care and expanding options. Despite people’s…

In 2015, our nation saw progress on the federal policy front as it relates to improving care and expanding choice at the end of life for the first time in years. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services approved a new regulation that allows doctors to be paid to have conversations with their patients about…

Everyone should be in the driver’s seat when it comes to their healthcare, especially at the end of life. We all need to know how a particular treatment might impact quality of life. If I have stage 4 cancer, how will an aggressive round of chemotherapy impact me? What if I take measures to manage…

This February, the newly formed African-American Leadership Council met in person for the first time in Washington, D.C,. to continue their work to improve end-of-life care for African-Americans. The council represents diverse backgrounds including faith leaders, physicians, nurses, social workers and other community leaders from around the country who bring a wide array of perspectives…

Compassion & Choices praised a new report by the Institute of Medicine that was charged with examining the “mismatch between the services patients and families need and the services they can obtain.” The study, Dying in America: Improving Quality and Honoring Individual Preferences Near the End of Life, was released today. “We know this Dying in America report…