OUTREACH COMMITTEE

Vision: Believing that the individual has the right and responsibility to choose the manner of her/his death, Compassion and Choices (C&C) would like to pool information with groups interested in end-of-life issues to establish common grounds for understanding and achieving death with dignity.

To avoid competition and misunderstanding among such groups interested in end-of-life concern, C&C would like to establish criteria for a good death, based on the following ideas:

1. pain management
2. patient participation in treatment
3. preparing patients for death (resolving conflicts, saying goodbye, tying up loose ends, spending
    time with friends, family)
4. networks of support (doctors, nurses, social workers, chaplains, pharmacists)
5. grief and legal counseling
6. ways for C&C and other groups to work together

The Annals of Internal Medicine, May 16, 2000

Groups to Contact: hospices, hospitals, Funeral Consumer Society, Regis School for Nursing, Center for Ethics and Humanities, universities.

Marilyn Amer
Ray Hockedy
C. Crispin Sargent
Jan Lammers

ADVANCE DIRECTIVE COMMITTEE

Peter Mayerson, M.D., continues to serve as the Compassion & Choices representative on the Colorado Advance Directive Consortium (CADC). For the last two years, the major work of the Consortium has been to develop a Medical Orders for Scope of Treatment (MOST) document, which has been a long and complicated process. MOST is a variant of what is known as POLST (Physicians' Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment) in many other states. MOST is a one-page, two-sided condensation of a person's advance directives and CPR orders which will primarily benefit the chronically or seriously ill person in frequent contact with doctors and nurses, or already residing in a nursing facility. It is a form which will be transportable from one facility to another and can be easily and quickly reviewed by healthcare providers.

COMMUNICATION COMMITTEE

Vision: To make the public aware of Compassion & Choices and the services we offer.

This committee produces such informational materials as a chapter brochure, the Web site, and the newsletter. The committee also provides press releases on upcoming meetings, events, and news items to the media. The committee prepares stories and fillers to send to newspapers and magazines.