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Quality of Life Matters Newsletter
Now in its 14th year of publication, Quality of Life Matters is the premier hospice educational outreach tool to the physician community, offering clinicians timely abstracts of published studies and end-of-life care news. It is recommended as an educational resource by the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine and the Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association. This eight-page newsletter is professionally researched, written, and edited by medical journalists specializing in end-of-life care. If you’d like to be added to the Hospice of VNS mailing list for this publication, email Kelly Ward-Smith, Media & PR Specialist, at kward@vnsa.com or call 330-848-6206.

  
• May - July 2013: Increased Rate of Intensive Care Utilization Near the End of Life Raises Concerns 
• February - April 2013: Earlier End-of-Life Discussions Linked to Greater Use of Hospice, Less Aggressive Care Near Death  
• November 2012 - January 2013: Experts Call for a Moratorium on Using the Phrase ‘Do Everything’ 
• August - October 2012: Hospital Discharges to Hospice Increased 15-Fold
  in Ten Years, National Study Finds
• May - July 2012: Physicians Urged to Conduct Early and Ongoing Discussions of Preferences with Advanced Heart Failure Patients
• February - April 2012: 96% of Physicians Favor Enhancing Quality of Life for 96% of Physicians Favor Enhancing Quality of Life
• November 2011 - January 2012: National Study Finds Further Evidence That Hospice Use Does ‘Not Compromise Survival’
• August - October 2011: Improving Care, Cutting Costs: Oncologists Encouraged to Change Their Treatment Choices for Seriously Ill Patients  
• May-July 2011: 97% of Americans Believe Patients and Families Should Be Educated about End-of-Life Care Options
• February - April 2011: Record 1.56 Million Patients Served by Hospice