For Further
Information Contact: Dennis McGowan (609) 984-7160
Department Gets Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey Grant
To Pilot Comfort Care Program in Long Term Care Facilities
Kickoff Event Slated in Whippany on January 13th
TRENTON -- The Department of Health and Senior Services' Office
of the Ombudsman for the Institutionalized Elderly today announced it
has received an $80,000 grant from the Healthcare Foundation of New
Jersey to pilot an initiative designed to improve the quality of
comfort care and pain management in institutional long term care
settings by teaching staff members the principles and tools of
palliative care.
Ten nursing homes in Essex, Morris, Sussex, Union and Warren
counties will be selected for participation in the pilot. The
project will train four-member palliative care teams within each
facility to provide options and infrastructures for long term care
residents to receive excellent comfort care and hospice services as
appropriate within the nursing home.
Nursing home representatives from the area have been invited to
learn more about the pilot at a kickoff event at the Alex Aidekman
Family Jewish Community Campus in Whippany at 11:00 a.m., Wednesday,
January 13, 1999. The event will be hosted by palliative care expert
Dr. Ann Berger of Cooper Health Systems and Bonnie Kelly, state
Ombudsman for the Institutionalized Elderly.
"Our goal is to foster a fundamental shift in thinking and
practices among long term care professionals by de-mystifying pain
management within the nursing home setting," said Kelly. "We believe
that residents deserve the right to live and die as they choose -- in
their own home -- even if that is a nursing home. No one should have
to transfer out of a nursing home to receive good comfort care, pain
management and hospice care."
Kelly said the project will be completed at the end of 1999 and
training will emphasize the clinical, psychosocial and spiritual
issues and tools related to palliative care and pain management. The
project is a collaborative effort between the Office of the Ombudsman
and Cooper Health Systems.
