Message from the Chair and Executive Director
Dear readers:
This past month, the Worldwide Palliative Care Alliance coordinated the celebration of the World Hospice and Palliative Care Day around the globe. Many countries hosted celebrations, meetings, seminars and advocacy activities to bring attention to the palliative care needs of patients and their families. Read the reports and share your stories in the WPCA website at http://www.worldday.org/.
With the occasion of celebrating the world day, the WPCA launched an updated report on the global status of hospice and palliative care which shows that 42% of the countries still have no services for patients and their families. The report can be downloaded from http://www.worldday.org/news/mapping-report-2011/
We recently announced a public call for nominations to 6 seats in the IAHPC Board of Directors. IAHPC members are invited to nominate health professionals actively working in hospice and palliative care with a demonstrated interest in the development of international palliative care initiatives and issues. The criteria for nominations and instructions to participate in this process are included in this newsletter. Deadline for nominations is November 30, 2011. We look forward to your submissions.
Based on the consensus of palliative care and pain experts from 39 different countries, we are proud to announce that we have developed the IAHPC Opioid Essential Prescription Package (OEPP). The OEPP will help improve the quality of pain management by recommending an opioid, a laxative and an antiemetic when a patient is prescribed a strong opioid for the first time. The study, and the OEPP, has been published in the Journal of Palliative Medicine and it is available as Open Access in http://cl.exct.net/?qs=6d889d03e282742055597de69b54412f42e66930d3b810dc9a5e242d6ca2cbe1
We are very proud of this accomplishment and are grateful with the authors and the individuals who participated in the study and Delphi process: many thanks to everyone for making this possible.
We are extremely pleased with the willingness of the palliative care community to participate in institutional collaborative projects like the OEPP. Soon another project will be concluded following editorial review. This demonstrates the enormous potential that lies in cooperating with individuals and organizations to undertake global projects which may have a global impact and improve the lives of many. Shortly, we will also invite our members to participate in another IAHPC project.
As many of you know, October was Members’ Recognition Month. We decided that it was necessary to build an awareness and understanding of the vital function that our members play in the advancement of our mission and to give recognition to our members for their support. As part of this recognition, we offered two iPads as prizes in the following categories:
1. Recognizing loyalty
Goal: to maintain the loyalty of members by giving a prize to an individual or institution that keeps their membership active. The contest ran from October 1 to October 31, 2011
2. Increasing membership
Goal: to increase the number of members by giving a prize to an individual who brings the highest number of new or renewed members. The contest ran from October 1 to October 31 every year.
In a few days we will announce the winners – good luck to everyone!
Several of you may have received a letter through the mail requesting a donation to IAHPC. We started our annual campaign in October and hope that you will financially support our efforts to improve and develop hospice and palliative care in the world.
Until next month,
Roberto Wenk, MD
Chair, Board of Directors
Liliana De Lima, MHA
Executive Director
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