The Illinois Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (IL-HPCO) will be inviting you in February to submit a proposal for a session for our Annual Fall Education Conference scheduled for Thursday, October 16, 2019 at Northern Illinois University (NIU) Naperville, IL. The Education Committee member managing speakers is Deb Whitson at Memorial Home Services in Springfield.
The Illinois Hospice & Palliative Care Organization (IL-HPCO) is partnering with POLST Illinois, combining efforts to strengthen awareness, education and advocacy related to advance care planning and the understanding and implementation of the Practitioner Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST) throughout the state.
“We are proud to be able to announce this partnership during November, National Hospice and Palliative Care Month,” said Sarah Bealles, Chair, IL-HPCO Board of Director and President & CEO of JourneyCare, an Illinois-based hospice and palliative care agency. “The national theme this year is ‘Know Your Options.’ Together, IL-HPCO and POLST Illinois will be able to have a greater voice in building awareness and enhancing education, training and advocacy about advance care planning statewide.”
A POLST form is a signed medical order that travels with the patient to ensure that a patient’s treatment preferences are honored across settings of care. It can help prevent unwanted or medially ineffective treatment, reduce patient and family suffering and help ensure a patient’s wishes are honored.
POLST is designed for people with a chronic, progressive disease or a serious medical condition and is an important part of advance care planning. It replaces the Do Not Resuscitate Practitioner Order (DNR).
Illinois POLST now becomes part of IL-HPCO, the only organization representing hospice and palliative care in the state of Illinois. IL-HPCO and POLST Illinois share a common goal of promoting quality care through informed end-of-life conversations and shared decision making, and ensuring that those with serious illness receive the treatments they want and don’t receive the treatments they don’t want.
