NHPCO's 11th CTC is the best value!

It's not too late to attend! Make a sound investment in your professional education!

With over 120 concurrent sessions, innovative content from leading experts and best practices that you can take back to your program and advance your level of care, NHPCO’s 11th CTC offers the best value for hospice and palliative professionals from all disciplines.

Advanced Registration Rates are extended! While online registration has closed, you can still register onsite and receive the advance registration rate!

Experience all NHPCO’s 11th CTC has to offer:

• Four powerhouse plenary sessions
• Over 120 educational sessions
• Regulatory and Pediatric Tracks
• Discipline-Specific Networking Meetings
• NHPCO's Job Fair and over 70 Exhibitors with new products and services
• Discounted Marketplace items with opportunity for FREE SHIPPING
• FREE Full-Day Preconference Seminar – We Honor Veterans
• FREE Preconference Event - Hearing the Voices of "The Soon Departed
• Poster Presentations
• Discounted FHSSA IMPACT Fund Event ticket prices

Plus – Your conference registration includes a daily continental breakfast, 2 lunches and a reception featuring heavy hors d’oeuvres.

Additional Educational Opportunities:

• Hospice Manager Development Program- Foundational Course
• Seven Preconference Seminars

Attend this year’s Clinical Team Conference and Pediatric Intensive, September 13-15. Visit the CTC webpage for more information.

August 2010 ChiPPS Newsletter Released

NHPCO’s Children’s Project on Palliative/Hospice Services has just released the new issue of its newsletter. This issue of the ChiPPS newsletter offers a PDF collection of articles that illustrate the importance of memory making and legacy building in pediatric palliative and hospice care. A message from NHPCO President and CEO J. Donald Schumacher was included – and is shared below.

(Download the PDF collection of articles)

A Message from Don Schumacher

On August 2, I opened NHPCO’s conference, Developing the Care Continuum, with a discussion about the importance of hospice and palliative care in the continuum of care. I wanted to share just a few thoughts with the readers of the ChiPPS newsletter.

I think many people would agree that the US healthcare system is quite fragmented – hence the importance of creating a continuum that includes hospice and palliative care. This must include pediatric palliative care.

Pediatric care has always been near to my heart and as quality-driven providers, we should be able to support the needs and/or assist in care coordination of all those coping serious and life-limiting illness – this includes children, adolescents, and their family members.

I recognize that pediatric palliative care is something many providers feel uncomfortable offering, but it is something we should understand more fully. We must expand our skill set and explore what resources are available to families in the communities we serve. I commend the work of the Children’s Project for Palliative/Hospice Services in developing new tools and resources to move the field forward.

Pediatric palliative care was specifically addressed in the health care reform legislation passed this year. This was a provision that NHPCO strongly lobbied for. The law allows children who are enrolled in either Medicaid or CHIP to receive hospice services without foregoing curative treatment related to a life-limiting illness. This should provide for a more seamless continuum.

When there is a seamless care continuum, providers work together to develop a coordinated plan that addresses all the needs of the patient and family caregivers. Those of you involved in pediatric palliative care know all too well that the needs of these seriously ill young people and families encompass physical, emotional, social, spiritual, nutritional and financial as well as practical and logistical needs. Care and services should be coordinated by professionals who understand the range of options available and appropriate in each situation.

I also want to stress that the concept of the care continuum is not – indeed, cannot be – solely geared to hospice providers. I know there are many hospice professionals working with ChiPPS but there are many others representing a range of provider types and disciplines, and we all must be involved with the development of the care continuum. Working together towards the creation of a seamless continuum will require us to collaborate and partner in a more expansive way than we’ve ever seen in the hospice community.

I believe that every single hospice provider needs to offer non-hospice palliative care. If you do not, somebody else will. Hospices are the experts in serious and life-limiting illness in their communities and they must be leaders in developing a seamless continuum of care.

So what I’m hoping is that hospices in the United States, in addition to the wonderful things they already do providing care in the last months of life, will become more visible and available as providers of or experts in pediatric palliative care.

Thank you for all you do to advance care for young people and their families.

J. Donald Schumacher, PsyD
NHPCO President and CEO

More Reasons to Attend NHPCO's 10th Clinical Team Conference

The Best Content and the Best Value. Discover why NHPCO's 10th Clinical Team Conference is the best educational value for hospice and palliative care professionals of all disciplines.

The CTC is the only educational event designed to educate the entire interdisciplinary team, offering advanced, intermediate and introductory content for all clinicians.

Plenary Speakers:

• Vyjeyanthi (VJ) Periyakoil, MD
• Frank Ostaseski
• Gary Gardia, MEd, LCSW, CT
• Brad Montgomery, CSP
  Learn more about these exciting plenary speakers.

The CTC is four conferences in one. The conference features the Facility-Based Hospice Forum, Pediatric Intensive and Scientific Symposium running seamlessly within the Clinical Team Conference.

Learn more online today.