Press Releases

Contact:
Vicki Ritterband
The Kenneth B. Schwartz Center
617-795-0180

Mary Wallan
Norwood Hospital
(781) 278-6020

The Kenneth B. Schwartz Center, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting compassionate health care, has awarded a two-year $200,000 grant to a Norwood Hospital collaborative to develop a program that ensures that patients’ deepest held beliefs and care preferences are communicated to their caregivers as they move from one care setting to another.

The grant acknowledges the challenges healthcare organizations face as they try to deliver compassionate, patient-centered care in a complex and fragmented system where patients often see multiple caregivers in many different types of settings. Patients’ wishes, values and preferences are sometimes lost or even ignored amidst the complexity. This past summer, the Schwartz Center issued a Request for Proposals, asking organizations to submit proposals for solving this problem.

“Research shows that communication about patients’ wishes and coordination of their care often breaks down as they transition from one care location to another,” said Schwartz Center Executive Director Julie Rosen. “This a time when patients are often the most vulnerable and in need of compassionate care and engagement. The Schwartz Center is deeply committed to addressing these gaps, and we believe Norwood Hospital and its partners have proposed a creative and very effective solution.”

That solution is a collaborative effort of Norwood Hospital and six other healthcare partners, including HESSCO Elder Services, Kindred Healthcare, Vista Care Hospice, Caritas Good Samaritan Hospice, Walpole Visiting Nurse Association and Caritas Home Care. The pilot program, which will begin enrolling patients in late spring, has several components:

• Norwood Hospital physicians will elicit important psychosocial information from patients on their second day of hospitalization, including what type of medical intervention, if any, they want; their spiritual needs and other medical or social goals.

• The program will address the transmission and updating of this information each time a patient transitions to a different care setting or different care provider in the community. The primary care physician will be a pivotal constant in the communication process.

• At each transition point, key people at the different participating facilities will be trained to look for this information and update it when necessary.

“We are very grateful to the Schwartz Center for this generous grant,” said Norwood Hospital President Margaret Hanson, RN. “It is giving us a wonderful opportunity to work closely with our community healthcare partners in addressing patient care concerns. We all share the goal of hearing and honoring our patients’ wishes along several psychosocial dimensions. The grant will assist us to organize a stronger system of community care for our patients.”

Patients and their families will be encouraged to maintain a file on this deeply personal information at home as well. The hospital will offer a USB device to patients and families should they want to keep the information electronically, which would also enable them to share it more easily with their caregivers.

The program includes comprehensive training for clinical caregivers, patients and families so that they all understand and actively participate in making sure this psychosocial information is effectively communicated during health care transitions.

About the Schwartz Center
The Schwartz Center, established in 1996, is an autonomous, not-for-profit organization, which supports compassionate health care and seeks to strengthen the relationship between patients and caregivers. The Center achieves its goals through education, training and support programs. A statewide review committee composed of physicians, nurses, social workers, community health workers, and patient advocates reviewed the nominations for the award.