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Myra Christopher, along with many other bioethicists and medical and legal professionals, funded by billionaire donors who support assisted suicide and euthanasia via legislative and public policy change in the U.S., has been instrumental in the push towards legalizing assisted suicide and euthanasia on many fronts. The gains in legalization have largely been through educational programs directed toward the medical field and medical industry, the legal field, government, the media, and the clergy, which leads to policy changes.
The Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC) is a national initiative supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, with guidance and assistance provided from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. CAPC provides health care professionals with tools, training and technical assistance, to help them start and sustain palliative care programs in hospitals and other health care settings.
http://www.capc.org/about-capc
The RWJF provided a $4.5 million grant to increase the numbers and availability of palliative care centers in hospitals throughout the U.S. The grants were to fund six institutions with palliative care programs called Palliative Care Leadership Centers (PCLCs), over a three year period. Each leadership center was to provide a site visitor program for professionals from other healthcare institutions intending to start palliative care programs. "There are over 800 hospitals that have palliative care programs. However, disparity still exists between the number of U.S. hospitals (around 5,000) and the number of hospitals with palliative care programs," says Dr. Diane E. Meier, Director of the Center to Advance Palliative Care.
Six centers initially chosen as leadership centers:
1) Fairview Foundation (Fairview Health Services) Minneapolis, MN
2) Massey Cancer Center of Virginia Commonwealth University Health System Richmond, VA
3) Medical College of Wisconsin Milwaukee, WI
4) Mount Carmel Health System Columbus, OH
5) Palliative Care Center of the Bluegrass Lexington, KY
6) University of California, San Francisco San Francisco, CA
The Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC) mission is to increase the availability of palliative care services in hospitals and other health care settings for people with life threatening illnesses, their families, and caregivers. Thus the reason we see individual hospitals starting up their own palliative care programs.
Their web site contains specific information and tools on building and designing a hospital based palliative care program, costs and financing, myriad tools to analyze financial aspects and quality management and improvement, policies, procedures, and protocols in areas such as DNR orders, use of analgesics, medication and nutritional guidelines, and research by independent end of life advocates.
CAPC also provides a core curriculum of programs in the planning or early stages of development through their web site which entail;
1) Training seminars on how to build hospital and hospice partnerships, strategies for funding programs, marketing techniques, tools to measure quality, cost and satisfaction, and how to conduct needs assessments
2) A guide to building a hospital based Palliative Care Program, such as the Palliative --VA program model
3) Audio conferences and other visual aids sell for $65.00 and up
4) The Palliative Care Leadership Center (PCLC) Initiative which educates and mentors those in developing or strengthening their palliative care program. Tuition is $1750 per team of up to four people from one institution. A discount is offered for those who bring a hospital "finance person" as a member of the team.
Some of the educational information included on the CAPC web site entail EPEC, educational materials in palliative and end of life care; ELNEC, the national education program to improve end of life care for nurses, and funded by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation; On Our Own Terms; and Project Death In America with a library of the Project on Death in America (PDIA).
CAPC also offers the JCAHO "Crosswalk of JCAHO Standards and Palliative Care" to provide quality palliative care based on JCAHO recommendations and policies." So we know medical regulatory agencies collaborate with the end of life movement and support assisted suicide.
A sampling of professional organizations listed on the CAPC web site:
1. American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine (AAHPM) an organization of physicians and other medical professionals dedicated to excellence in palliative medicine
2. American Pain Foundation (APF) helping people with pain
ELNEC member trainer, in conjunction with Myra's Bioethics Center.
3. American Pain Society (APS) clinical scientists, practicing clinicians, policy analysts, and others involved in pain related research, education, treatment and professional practice
4. Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association (HPNA) promotes understanding of the specialties of hospice and palliative nursing, and hospice and palliative nursing research
5. Hospice Foundation of America development and application of hospice and its philosophy of care.
ELNEC member trainer, in conjunction with Myra's Bioethics Center.
6. Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) evaluates and accredits nearly 17,000 health care organizations and programs in the United States
7. Joint Commission Resources, Inc. (JCR) assists in meeting the accreditation standards of the Joint Commission. JCR is a subsidiary of JCAHO
8. National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO) organization representing hospice and palliative care programs and professionals in the United States
ELNEC member trainer, in conjunction with Myra's Bioethics Center.
9. Promoting Excellence a National Program Office of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation providing grants and technical support to innovative programs to change the face of dying in America
ELNEC member trainer, in conjunction with Myra's Bioethics Center.
10.Project on Death In America (PDIA) transforming the culture and experience of dying and bereavement through initiatives
ELNEC member trainer, in conjunction with Myra's Bioethics Center.
11. Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) the largest US foundation devoted to improving the health and health care
ELNEC member trainer, in conjunction with Myra's Bioethics Center.
Diane Meier, MD, is director of the Center to Advance Palliative Care. Dr. Meier has received numerous grants and awards, including the National Institute on Aging Academic Award, the Open Society Institute Faculty Scholar's Award of the Project on Death in America, and the Alexander Richman Commemorative Award for Humanism in Medicine. She is currently the recipient of a five year NIA Academic Career Leadership Award focusing on palliative care of the elderly and the mentoring and support of junior faculty in palliative medicine.
Other CAPC Advisors have served on the board of directors of the Partnership for Caring, which managed Last Acts, Open Society Institute's Project on Death in America, and worked with EPEC (Education for Physicians in End-of-Life Care), AARP and Aging with Dignity.
While Myra may not be listed as a board member or serve in an official capacity with the CAPC, she collaborates and networks with CAPC and the above groups, and her affiliation and influence is deeply embedded throughout the CAPC in the form of educational resources, development of certain structures within the end of life programs, strategies, and her ties to groups advocating assisted suicide and euthanasia, such as Last Acts, PDIA, and the RWJF.
In 2002, a feasibility study was undertaken to create an end of life and palliative care center in Colorado. Included in the study:
1) Center for Hospice, Palliative Care and End of Life Studies at the University of South Florida,
2) CAPC,
3) Hospice Institute of the Florida Suncoast, and
4) Myra's Bioethics Center. Myra's Center was interviewed and/or provided information towards the study.
http://www.rcfdenver.org/reports/EndofLifePalliative.pdf
Ties to RWJF and OSI funding that support and maintain the right to die concept, EPEC and ELNEC education, along with direct ties to Last Acts and Partnership for Caring are blatant indicators Myra collaborates with CAPC and that the assisted suicide movement is heavily involved.
From 2001 to 2002, CAPC conducted a project that focused on the financial implications of palliative care that arises from shorter lengths of stay in a hospital or other type of short term healthcare facility, increased revenue from inpatient hospice beds, and other changes in healthcare provided to patients at the end of life.
The RWJF provided a grant of $335,000 to the Spragen's Bard Group. Project director was Lynn Hill Spragens, and titled, "Building Business Tools to Support Sustainable Palliative Care Programs." The project's purpose was to provide tools and assess the impact of palliative care programs within their institutions. Success was determined by palliative care program features and strategies that resulted in sustainability of palliative care. The Bard Group's goal is utilizing the Healthcare Financial Management Association and other organizations to convince and encourage "mainstream buy-in from healthcare institutions' leadership."
Grant Information Detail - Center to Advance Palliative Care
Spragens also received a grant from the Commonwealth Fund from late 2003 to mid 2004 in the amount of $200,000. Lynn Spragens served as principal investigator. The Commonwealth Fund provided the grant to the Wellspring Innovative Solutions: Replicating the Model program. The Wellspring Model purports to improve the care Nursing Homes (NH's) provide to their frail, elderly patients. Success was measured by reaching a goal of 18 alliances comprising approximately 10 nursing homes each by 2005, which would enable Wellspring to function as an independent and non-profit service oriented business in the field of nursing home quality improvement.
http://www.cmwf.org/grants/grants_show.htm?doc_id=222712
Who is Lynn Spragens? She is a healthcare consultant with an MBA having spent 9 years with Kaiser Permanente. Her current projects include working with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (business case support to the Transforming Care at the Bedside work), long term care initiatives (Green House, Pioneer Network, Wellspring), and VHA (business case for quality work), and numerous other palliative care programs.
Lynn Spragens has a long term consulting relationship with CAPC. She has developed business tools used by CAPC. She speaks on palliative care topics regularly. She works with individual hospital based programs. She is a "bridger" where she bridges the finance and clinical care aspects of healthcare.
In June of this year, 2006, a conference for Case Managers on palliative care as a cost saving "tool" was held and presented by the CAPC advisor, Diane Meier titled "Palliative Care: A Successful Model for Engaging Physicians in Care Planning." Lynn Spragens was guest speaker.
Palliative Care: A Successful Model for Engaging Physicians in Care Planning
Cost savings and cost saving models in healthcare have been part and parcel with CAPC, and many other end of life/right to die proponents, as they apply and advance their assisted suicide movement.
Dr. C. Everett Koop, former Surgeon General of the U.S., once stated in 1992, "I am convinced that in the 1930's the German medical sentiment favoring euthanasia (even before Hitler came to power) made it easier for the Nazi government to move society along the slippery slope that led to the Holocaust."
In the U.S. today, does government favor euthanasia and assisted suicide? In the U.S. today, does medicine favor euthanasia and assisted suicide? In the U.S. today, does society favor euthanasia and assisted suicide? We know some bioethicists, medical professionals, and some in government and society do favor euthanasia and assisted suicide, and even infanticide.
The Council on Ethical Judicial Affairs of the AMA declared in 1994, "The social commitment of the physician is to sustain life and relieve suffering. . . . [He] should not intentionally cause death." The Hippocratic Oath was never designed to kill or assist to kill patients. Assisted suicide and euthanasia are truly violations of ethical principles within the medical professions.
Unfortunately, the AMA declaration of 1994 no longer holds true in today's milieu as Myra and like minded advocates, some serving as physicians, clamor for assisted suicide laws and legalization of euthanasia. 6-30-06
Karen is a Registered Nurse with a specialty in Obstetrics and currently holds licenses in Ohio and Florida.
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