Dr. Janet Craig School of Nursing-Health Systems and EOL Care
In partnership with local providers, two projects are underway to investigate the current state of end-of-life care in Upstate SC. The first project, Barriers to Seamless Transitions into Hospice, is an initiative with Interim Home Care and Hospice who serves 8 upstate counties, and the second is a project with GHS partners Profiling the Last Six Months of Life, a study exploring 2003 deaths in hospital settings. Dr. Craig is also the primary investigator on several graduate student projects of a similar nature with GHS Hospice and Spartanburg Regional Hospital. These studies will extend the sample size and lend credibility to findings about the current nature of EOL care in the upstate community and provide direction and priorities for change.
Dr. Janet Craig and Dr. Janet Timms School of Nursing
Drs. Craig and Timms have developed The Upstate EOL Educational Collaborative, a group of professional providers comprised of 36 partners who represent all major health care organizations and settings in the upstate, as well as university and technical programs preparing health professionals, AHEC, and The Carolinas Center for Hospice and EOL Care. SC Alliance 2020 seed money and matching dollars from Greenville Hospital System, St. Francis, and Interim Hospice and Laurens County Health System were obtained to support an initiative designed to raise awareness and assist professionals “to think globally and act locally” to improve end-of-life care for seniors in upstate South Carolina. A series of six multi-institutional, interdisciplinary communication and knowledge building conferences over a two year period (2004-5) featuring nationally recognized experts is planned, the first of which was held November 10, 2004. Community needs assessment research is in the process with student co-investigators.
Dr.
Eric Seiber Department of Public Health Sciences
– Health Economics
Dr. Janet Craig School
of Nursing – End of Life Care
Drs. Seiber and Craig are resubmitting an NIH grant to examine patient site of care transitions at the end of life. This study will use Medicare claims data to examine transitions between health care facilities that potentially increase the "burden of illness", disrupt the continuity of care, and increase out-of-pocket costs during the last six months of life.