Long Term Living Project Goals

• Preventive healthcare must lead the way to address the social and lifestyle factors that contribute to chronic conditions which decrease the quality of life in long term living.
• Planning for end-of-life decisions should occur for all individuals undergoing chronic and long term care. Advanced directives and discussions of treatment goals convey personal preferences, clarify expectations, and reduce the emotional pain, stress and the cost of unwanted and ineffective interventions at the end-of-life.
• Palliative and hospice care must be integrated with home healthcare so that standard disease modification procedures reflect a more personalized flexible, comfortable and cost-effective treatment system.

Long Term Living Project Priorities

• Draw on Newt Gingrich’s service as co-chair on the National Commission for Quality Long-term Care to communicate and encourage the adoption of the Center for Health Transformation’s vision for improving the country’s long term care system.
• Work together with the Health Information Technology Project, to encourage long term care facilities to adopt appropriate, interoperable HIT to provide continuity of care as seniors move across the spectrum of service options.
• Promote a culture of care that empowers patients and caregivers honoring individual dignity and autonomy.
• Provide geriatrics-centered education to better enable caregivers and the health workforce to understand the age-specific dynamics of long term living empowering them at every step in the healthcare decision process.
• Focus on effective disease and symptom management as the hallmark of long term care.
• Understand and address disparities in hospice use across ethnic groups and geographic locations by creating culturally-informed transitional programs, educational materials and hospice operations.