...Excerpted from the Executive Summary
Reclaiming the End of Life is a non-partisan, citizen driven initiative for compelling presidential candidates to address the issues that matter most to frail elders, seriously ill people and the families who care for them. The Initiative is comprised of people in New Hampshire and focused on our state’s first-in-the-nation primaries, but it addresses problems of national importance.
Despite advances in medicine and best practices based on
abundant research, too many people still suffer needlessly
as they approach the end of life and too often their families
suffer with them. Frail elders, chronically ill people, and family
caregivers face stark deficiencies in health care and lack basic
support for their needs and well-being. And as difficult as
things are today, these may soon seem like the proverbial good
old days….
A demographic flood of elderly and chronically ill Americans
has already exposed serious fractures in our nation’s health
care and social systems. Soon the gathering tide will overwhelm
American communities and families. We have time to avert
disaster, but only if we start now.
A number of governmental agencies, Institutes and
expert panels have called for action and offered specific
recommendations for correcting current deficiencies and
avoiding future disasters. Among them, the Institute of Medicine and the Congressionally-empanelled Citizens
Working Group on Health Care…
In the past 15 years, thanks to major funding by leading
American philanthropic foundations, innovative models of
care have been developed – and are ready for use.
The situation is analogous to those that have preceded other,
more limited crises. In the days that follow national tragedies,
such as hurricane Katrina’s devastation of New Orleans or the
collapse of the I-35W Twin Cities bridge, we often learn that
experts had been warning for years of untended problems and
a looming catastrophe.
The Reclaiming Initiative convened 8 Citizen Forums in the
past 6 months and, using participant-response technology,
collected data from over 450 citizens in towns around New
Hampshire. We asked what is most important to them as
they contemplate the waning phase of life – and what they
want policy makers to know as they develop health and social
policies to improve the lives of frail elders, people with serious
illness and their family caregivers.
The results are compelling and provide a sense of the specific
policy opportunities that could avert, or at least substantially
diminish, the social and public health crisis that aging, dying
and caregiving represent.
Preview - TABLE of CONTENTS
Introduction 1
Understanding the Crisis 2
Model Programs and Approaches for Caring Well 4
Starting the Conversation 8
What it Means 14
Sponsors/Partners 16
Authors 16
References 17
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