As Healthcare Professionals Plan for COVID-19, You Should Too

PRINCETON, N.J., March 26, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- We are living in an unprecedented time as we adjust to the rapidly changing healthcare landscape created by COVID-19. Hospitals and healthcare professionals are trying to manage the demands created by the influx of affected patients and reported shortages of hospital beds and ventilators. Nursing home populations and older adults, often with underlying chronic medical conditions, are at the highest risk of being affected by COVID-19. Many will get sick, some critically, and many will die. The Goals of Care Coalition of New Jersey (GOCCNJ) is offering to help by educating those high-risk populations and their family medical decision-makers about the importance of discussing and documenting their wishes for medical care.

Beginning on Monday, 3/30 and continuing through 4/24, David Barile, MD, Palliative & Geriatric Physician, Penn Medicine Princeton Medical Center and Founder and Chief Medical Officer, GOCCNJ and Stephen Goldfine, MD, Chief Medical Officer, Samaritan Healthcare & Hospice and member of GOCCNJ, will lead a daily 30-minute Zoom webinar at 1:00 PM EST for the elderly, nursing home residents, their loved ones, and their authorized healthcare proxies to discuss advance directives and medical orders such as POLST (Practitioner Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment). Visit www.goalsofcare.org to register for the webinar and access free tools and resources about COVID-19 and the advance care planning process. After registering, a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar via computer or phone will be sent.

According to Dr. Barile, "In the context of dealing with COVID-19, the usual concerns of palliative care—quality of life, understanding patient's goals of care and what matters most to them if they get very sick, have never been more important. That is why GOCCNJ is launching a focused effort to ensure that high-risk patients, such as those residing in nursing homes for whom it's appropriate, have a completed POLST form."

All adults should have an advance directive to identify a surrogate decision-maker and provide information about treatments they may or may not want to receive in an emergency.  A POLST form is used when you become seriously ill or are a frail elder and gives medical orders to emergency personnel. "We are strongly encouraging family decision-makers and authorized healthcare proxies to speak to their loved ones, when possible, to make decisions about future medical care and to put them in writing," says Dr. Barile.

Goals of Care Coalition of New Jersey is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and the only network of organizations in NJ working together to make certain that patients with serious illness get the care they need and no less, and the care they want and no more. We believe human interests, values, and dignity must be at the core of medical decision-making. As such, we aspire to create a standard of care for NJ where people explore their wishes for care towards the end of life, express those wishes, and have their wishes honored. Through education and advocacy, our mission is to ensure that healthcare providers, patients, and family caregivers have the information, resources, training, and tools they need to facilitate discussions that result in a care plan that aligns treatment with the patient's goals of care. 

Today we have sixteen member organizations including the NJ Hospital Association, the Medical Society of NJ, the NJ Association of Health Plans, the Health Care Association of NJ, HQSI, the Home Care & Hospice Association of NJ, LeadingAge NJ & DE, the NJ Health Care Quality Institute, the NJ Palliative Care APN Consortium, the VNA Health Group, Samaritan Healthcare & Hospice, the National Association of Social Workers - NJ Chapter, the NJ Association of Mental Health and Addiction Agencies, College of Pastoral Supervision & Psychotherapy - Princeton Chapter, Jewish Sacred Aging, and the NJ Long-Term Care Leaders Coalition representing the Association of Directors of Nursing Administration/LTC, the New Jersey Medical Directors Association, the New Jersey Geriatrics Society, the New Jersey Chapter - American College of Health Care Administrators, S-COPE Statewide Clinical Outreach Program for the Elderly, and Dietetics in Health Care Communities of New Jersey.

We also have established strategic alliances with the NJ Department of Health (DOH), the Office of Minority & Multicultural Health, the Coalition to Transform Advanced Care (CTAC), and the following academic institutions: Rutgers NJ Medical School, Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Rutgers School of Public Health, Cooper Medical School of Rowen University and Rowan University School of Osteopathic Medicine.

SOURCE Goals of Care Coalition of New Jersey

Related Links

goalsofcare.org