Hot Off the Presses (ACP News Round Up): From NHDD Events to Social Media and Patient Health Care

...that’s just to mention a few. Advance care planning has been ripe for media attention for a while and the press is finally taking notice. So here's what they're reporting on:

As you know, the NHDD 2011 team has taken steps to broaden the reach of the initiative and engage more people through social media with @NHDD on twitter and the NHDD Facebook page. Well, recent Dayton Business Journal article “Patients flock to Facebook for health” says we’re doing it the right way! If patients are turning to social media more and more to make their medical decisions, they are certainly running across NHDD!

However, we’re not the only ones embracing non-traditional means of spreading the word about NHDD. In “A drama of dying wishes,” the Charlotte Observer reports that Mecklenburg End-of-Life Coalition and Hospice & Palliative Care Charlotte Region, is hosting three, free productions of during this and next month of “Vesta,” a play written about starting the advance care planning dialogue. The production has been deliberately timed to coincide with NHDD in an effort to help people “have the talk.”

Turning our attention away from the stage and back to the presses and the blogosphere, here are a few more noteworthy articles:

• People are chatting, tweeting and Facebooking about the Boston Globe’s very timely (considering we are just FOUR weeks away from NHDD) editorial piece, “At end of life –more planning, more counseling, more dignity.”

• The title of Bridget M. Kuehn’s JAMA article–ASCO: Patients With Advanced Cancer Need Advice on End-of-Life Care Options—is pretty self-explanatory and validates the need for NHDD, Canada’s Advance Care Planning Day (ACPD) and other similar initiatives.

• In his piece, “Live like you’re going to die(because you are),” Huffington Post Blogger Mike Robbins encourages us all to embrace death as a part of life and to plan for it accordingly.

• Also in the Huffington Post, Clinical Psychologist Joseph Nowinski’s post “What to expect when a loved one receives a terminal diagnosis” is a great way to spark the advance care planning conversation with loved ones. After reading all that your family unit will have to endure and overcome upon receipt of a terminal diagnosis, I'd be thinking : 'why wait and add more stress by not planning in advance?'

To round out our news tidbits, our trusted resource @HospiceAction just informed us that long time advance care planning champion on Capitol Hill Rep. earl Blumenauer will be the keynote speaker at their up and coming Hill Day 2011. We'll keep our ears to the ground to find out what he's got to say about the importance of advance care planning, advance directives and NHDD.

Check back on Tuesday for more on the latest advance care planning news stories.