Improving care for the patients who are in the last phase of their lives has been a field that most health care providers have struggled with during last few years. Having worked with hundreds of providers throughout the country, these experienced authors know what providers need when it comes to implementing a quality improvement project. This guide will provide user-friendly, step-by-step instructions on how to implement a quality improvement project in the full range of care settings. The instructions will be brought to life with specific examples from actual successful projects and key...

..". compelling.... This book might have been called 'No Easy Answers.' Each of the contributors writes with undisguised urgency.... W]e should face up to these issues now. By No Extraordinary Means will serve as an impetus and guide." -New York Times Book Review

"This fine new book... thoughtfully written... well edited and cohesively integrated... will be valuable for physicians, nurses, nutritionists, attorneys, members of the clergy, policy makers, and members of the general public." -New England Journal of Medicine

Just a few generations ago, serious illness, like hazardous weather, arrived with little warning, and people either lived through it or died. In this important, convincing, and long-overdue call for health care reform, Joanne Lynn demonstrates that our current health system, like our concepts of health and disease, developed at a time when life was mostly short, serious illnesses and disabilities were common at every age, and dying was quick. Today, most Americans live a long life, with the disabilities and discomforts of progressive chronic illness appearing only during the final chapters of...

Modern medical technology has lengthened our lives and forever altered how we face our deaths -- but it has also created painful dilemmas that lawyers, doctors, spiritual leaders, and, above all, patients and their families are struggling with every day. Now, drawing on more than six years of firsthand research and reporting, noted journalist Marilyn Webb has written the one essential book we need to understand these new realities -- and to take positive steps to improve the care of the dying.

Health care professionals seeking to improve the quality of life for those living with serious illness and nearing the end of life will find exactly what their organization needs in the second edition of this acclaimed book by Dr. Joanne Lynn and her colleagues. Improving Care for the End of Life provides expert guidance on how to make significant improvements now, at all levels of the health care system from the bedside and the hospital to the health care policy and legislative arenas by using the rapid-cycle breakthrough approach to change. The ideas are proven, and the...

Modern medical technology has changed not only the way we live but also the way we die. Until two generations ago, people usually died suddenly, after an accident or serious illness. Now, most of us will live with chronic conditions, and our dying will usually take longer, require more care, and demand more planning than ever before.
Handbook for Mortals is warmly addressed to all those who wish to approach the final years of life with greater awareness of what to expect and greater confidence about how to make the end of their lives a time of growth, comfort, and meaningful...