Continued Education and Outreach on End-of-Life Issues

Bioethicist Dr. Helen Blank leads discussion with participants.

OOIE has continued its commitment to training and educating long-term care workers to deal with difficult ethical conflicts, especially around medical treatment at end of life.

From January through May 2012, OOIE held 7 trainings throughout New Jersey and educated more than 500 long term care professionals. 

The training, How to Make Ethical Decisions at the Bedside, is presented by bioethicist Dr. Helen Blank and teaches participants to identify ethical issues and to work through them in order to avoid crises and family conflict when facing difficult, heart-wrenching situations. These might include questions about withholding or withdrawing life sustaining medical treatment such as feeding tubes and ventilators, implementing do-not-resuscitate (DNR) and do-not-hospitalize (DNH) orders, or involving hospice.

OOIE continues to hold bi-monthly meetings of New Jersey’s Regional Ethics Committees (RECs) – groups of professionals from many disciplines who come together to provide guidance to facilities to deal with the issues mentioned above.

There are 10 such groups currently operating throughout New Jersey, which serve as an important resource to the long-term care community. OOIE provides guidance and support to the RECs and brings these groups together regularly so that they can exchange information, share experiences, and provide feedback on the ethics support and education they give to the provider community.

Click here to view contact list of the Regional Ethics Committees