Daily Mail Editorial: End-of-Life Bill Opens Lines of Communication

No one wants to talk about dying. However, it’s a part of life and something every family must contend with eventually.

Sometimes it is difficult for families and care givers to address or even discuss end-of-life care to ensure their loved ones receive quality care in their final days.

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito joined with others last week to introduce bipartisan legislation to improve end-of-life care for Americans. The Compassionate Care Act aims to provide federal support to educate patients and providers, develop end-of-life care quality measures and test innovations in advance care planning via telemedicine, among other things.

In many instances, patients and their caregivers may be unaware of the health care options that exist.

“The Compassionate Care Act helps to alleviate those challenges by supporting training for health care professionals and increasing awareness about what hospice care options are available,” Capito said in a news release. “If we can increase our understanding of hospice care, more patients and loved ones can experience the comfort that hospice provides.”

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., co-sponsors the legislation. He said in a news release that families and caregivers often don’t want to be the first to start talking about end-of-life care, essentially never opening the lines of communication with health care professionals.

“But these critical conversations are essential to ensuring that we all receive the care that we want and that is right for us,” he said. “This bipartisan legislation will help open the lines of communication to improve end-of-life care for all Americans.”

The legislation also empowers physicians and other health care professionals to begin the conversation on end-of-life care. A pilot program in advance care curricula would allow those health care professionals to develop skills on how to help patients and families with advance care planning and supports continuing education for physicians.

With West Virginia’s aging population, end-of-life care is something families, caregivers and health care professionals must address. Communicating the patient’s desires and available care options would ensure the patient’s final wishes are known and followed, allowing his or her death to be as peaceful a process as possible for all involved.