Press Releases

February 7, 2006

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Marjorie Stanzler
617-726-0914

Kenneth B. Schwartz Center Expands Schwartz Center Rounds® Program to 12 New Sites

Innovative program provides forum for caregivers to explore emotional issues related to patient care

Boston, MA — The Kenneth B. Schwartz Center, a nonprofit organization dedicated to strengthening the relationship between patients and caregivers, announced today that the organization's fastest growing and most successful program, the Schwartz Center Rounds, has recently been implemented at 12 new sites across the country.

Since August 2005, the Rounds have begun in Massachusetts at South Shore Hospital, in South Weymouth; and Heywood Hospital in Gardner. In Michigan, the Rounds began at William Beaumont Hospital Royal Oak, in Royal Oak; and Providence Cancer Institute in Southfield. In Connecticut, they began at St. Francis Hospital & Medical Center in Hartford; and Yale-New Haven Hospital in New Haven.

Elsewhere the Rounds began at Florida Hospital Cancer Institute in Orlando; St. Luke's Mountain States Tumor Institute in Boise, Idaho; the Veteran's Administration of Western New York Health Care System in Buffalo; the University of Chicago Hospitals in Chicago, Illinois; the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha; and the University of Southern California Norris Cancer Center in Los Angeles.

Piloted at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston in 1997, with the goal of providing a forum in which caregivers can discuss difficult emotional and social issues they face in providing compassionate care to patients, the Rounds are currently in 76 hospitals, five nursing homes, two community health centers and one outpatient clinic in 23 states.

"The feedback we have received about the program from caregivers, across various clinical disciplines, has been overwhelmingly positive," said Julie Rosen, executive director of the Schwartz Center. "In today's challenging healthcare environment where caregivers are burdened with financial and bureaucratic stresses and training in the non-clinical aspects of patient care is at a minimum, the Rounds provide a unique opportunity for caregivers to express themselves emotionally, learn from their colleagues and develop a better understanding of compassionate patient communication."

The Rounds program is funded by the Schwartz Center and implemented by staff members at the participating site. The atmosphere of the Rounds provides caregivers a safe, relaxed environment to share their concerns, fears, and experience with other caregivers. Topics discussed during the session range from dealing with cultural differences between a patient and caregiver to handling a difficult and hostile patient. Through the discussion of their experiences with patient care, caregivers are afforded the opportunity to learn from one another while also receiving support and understanding from colleagues.

Growing rapidly, the Rounds have received accolades from caregivers across the country, and in some states physicians, nurses and social workers can receive continuing education credits by attending the Rounds.

In addition to the Rounds program, the Schwartz Center funds grants in the areas of communication skills, cultural competency, end-of-life care/bereavement, and spirituality. Since the Schwartz Center was founded in 1995, it has awarded more than 100 grants to various nonprofit organizations in the United States.

About the Kenneth B. Schwartz Center
Shortly before his death from lung cancer in September of 1995, Kenneth B. Schwartz, formerly a partner at Mintz, Levin, established a Center dedicated to strengthening the relationship between patients and caregivers in the changing health care system. Operating under the 501(c)3 tax exempt status of the Massachusetts General Hospital, the Kenneth B. Schwartz Center is an autonomous, nonprofit organization with a mission to support and advance compassionate health care in which caregivers, patients and their families relate to one another in a way that provides hope to the patient, support to caregivers, and sustenance to the healing process. The Center's most successful and fastest growing program, the Schwartz Center Rounds, is now operating in over 100 sites in multiple states.