Education Development Center, Inc.|
For Immediate Release November 3, 2003 Contact: Alison Cohen Hundreds to Attend State-of-the-Art National Symposium on Improving Health Care for Children with Life-Threatening Conditions NEW YORK, NY – In a first-of-its kind national conference, health care professionals from across the country and parents of children with life-threatening conditions will gather at The New York Academy of Medicine on November 6th and 7th to discuss ways to improve care for children who are seriously ill. The symposium, Enhancing Family-Centered Care for Children Living with Life-Threatening Conditions, is sponsored by the Initiative for Pediatric Palliative Care (IPPC), a collaboration of Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC), The New York Academy of Medicine, the National Association of Children’s Hospitals and Related Institutions, the Society of Pediatric Nurses, and the Association of Medical School Pediatric Department Chairs as well as seven leading children’s hospitals. The symposium will include sessions on such topics as pain management, grief and bereavement, and communication around end-of-life care for children. In several sessions, parents of children who have died or who currently have chronic illnesses will share their perspectives with medical educators, ethicists and practitioners. “These are devastating points in the lives of these children and their families,” said Alan R. Fleischman, M.D., Senior Vice President for Medical and Academic Affairs at the Academy. “We need to provide these children with pain management, symptom management and emotional support, and we need to help their extended families.” “For the last decade or more, there has been considerable attention given to the end-of-life care needs of adults in the United States,” said Mildred Z. Solomon, IPPC principal investigator. “It’s been nearly taboo to acknowledge that children also face, and sometimes succumb to, life-threatening conditions.” As part of the symposium, IPPC will introduce a curriculum and video series designed to help children’s hospitals and similar institutions develop effective interdisciplinary teams of doctors, nurses, social workers, chaplains and allied health care professionals. The peer-reviewed curriculum, which IPPC has developed and pilot-tested over the last two years, consists of facilitator’s guides (free and downloadable online at www.ippcweb.org), case studies, and video interviews with families who have lost children or who are caring for seriously ill children. The symposium will kick off a series of training sessions around the country designed to help children’s hospitals implement a team approach to pediatric palliative care. More than 50,000 children die each year in the U.S., and 80 percent of them die in hospitals. “The nation’s children’s hospitals are often the main providers of care for poor, underserved children from a wide variety of cultural and religious backgrounds,” says EDC’s David Browning, director of the IPPC initiative. “This conference, and the IPPC initiative more broadly, aim to ensure that the voices of these children and their families are heard and responded to effectively.” For more information, visit the National Symposium Web site. The New York Academy of Medicine is a non-profit institution founded in 1847 that is dedicated to enhancing the health of the public through research education and advocacy with a particular focus on urban populations, especially the disadvantaged. In addition to the IPPC collaborating organizations, the symposium is being sponsored by the Institute for Johns Hopkins Nursing, the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, and the Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association. IPPC’s funders include The Nathan Cummings Foundation, the Project on Death in America, and an anonymous family foundation. In addition, the symposium has received support from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, GlaxoSmithKline, and the National Association of Children’s Hospitals and Related Institutions. Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC) is one of the world’s leading nonprofit education and health organizations, with 325 projects in 50 countries. EDC brings researchers and practitioners together to advance learning and healthy development for individuals of all ages and institutions of all types. For more information, visit www.edc.org. |