Dr. Curtis, the Director of the Program, is a pulmonary and critical care physician and has focused his research on measuring and improving end-of-life care for patients with acute and chronic illness.  Dr. Engelberg, the Co-director of the Research Program, is an educational psychologist by training and an accomplished health services researcher with a focus on measurement and survey development.

The End-of-Life Care Research Program is a resource in a number of important areas for clinical and health services researchers.  These include:  1) recruitment and retention of participants for studies addressing sensitive topics such as end-of-life care; 2) survey development and implementation; 3) management and analyses of large datasets; 4) design and implementation of complex clinical and health services research study designs including longitudinal, clustered, and repeated measures designs; 5) protection of human subjects and the development and implementation of applications for Institutional Review Boards; and 6) design and implementation of interventions in clinical practice.

Overall Purpose

The mission of the End-of-life Care Research Program is to improve the quality of palliative and end-of-life care for patients and their families. The End-of-Life Care Research Program is composed of clinical and health services investigators and staff working on research projects that have as their overall goal the improvement of palliative and end-of-life care. In addition to providing core support for these specific projects, the Program serves as a resource to other investigators conducting related research.

It is also a goal of the Program to participate in education by providing the resources for medical students, medical residents, physician-fellows, nurses, and others to participate in these projects and conduct related research projects. The Program personnel also conduct clinical education for medical and nursing staff interested in improving patient-clinician communication about end-of-life care and improving the quality of care at the end of life.

Finally, several of the assessment tools being developed and validated by the Program will be used in quality improvement projects targeting end-of-life care. The ultimate goal of these instruments is to improve care at the end of life.

Current Specific Research Goals

• Measure and improve the quality of patient-clinician communication about end-of-life care.
• Identify and overcome barriers to patient-clinician communication about end-of-life care.
• Develop interventions that will improve the quality of patient-clinician communication about end-of-life care and the quality of care at the end of life.
• Develop a series of process and outcome measures that can be used as end-points in evaluations of end-of-life care:  the quality of communication about end-of-life care; the quality of dying and death; the quality of physician skill at providing end-of-life care; and the quality of clinician-family communication in the ICU

[October 2012]  With its official launch Oct. 8, the UW Palliative Care Center of Excellence will be poised to become an international leader in advancing the science and the delivery of palliative and end-of-life care for patients with chronic and life-limiting illnesses.

The UW Palliative Care Center of Excellence will bring together individual leaders who are recognized for palliative care research, education and clinical care across the health sciences disciplines.

“We are fortunate that the UW has pockets of excellence in palliative care across the health sciences schools and UW Medicine clinical sites,” said J. Randall Curtis, UW professor of pulmonary and critical care medicine and director of the new UW Palliative Care Center of Excellence.

“However, there has not been a systematic coordination and integration of all these activities. The Center will be one of few academic palliative care institutions in the nation to comprehensively advance the science of palliative and end-of-life care by increasing interdisciplinary and interprofessional collaborations in research, education and clinical care. Of course, the ultimate goal is to improve quality of care for patients and their families.”

Curtis, an international authority on critical, palliative and end-of-life care, was recently named the first holder of the A. Bruce Montgomery-American Lung Association Endowed Chair in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine. Curtis will co-direct the UW Palliative Care Center of Excellence with Anthony Back, professor of medicine in the Division of Oncology.

Other UW faculty assuming leadership roles in the new center are Stuart Farber, professor of family medicine; Darrell Owens, clinical assistant professor of medicine and director of outpatient palliative medicine servicesat Harborview Medical Center; Wayne McCormick, professor in geriatrics and gerontology and director of the palliative medicine fellowship; Elizabeth Loggers, assistant professor in medical oncology and director of palliative care at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance; Ruth Engelberg, research associate professor in pulmonary and critical care medicine and associate director of end of life care program at Harborview Medical Center; and Helene Starks, associate professor of bioethics and humanities.

The new UW Palliative Care Center of Excellence will be officially launched with the center’s inaugural visiting lecture by Susan Block, professor of psychiatry and medicine at Harvard Medical School and co-director of the Harvard Medical School Center for Palliative Care (photo, left). Block is chair of the Department of Psychosocial Oncology and Palliative Care at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

Block will give the lecture, Moving Conversations about the End of Life Upstream: The Serious Illness Communication Checklist, at 4 p.m., Monday, October 8, 2012 in Room T-625, Health Sciences Building. Block, an international leader in palliative care, has directed national and international faculty development programs for palliative care clinicians. She studies interventions to improve communication in the setting of serious illness, psychological issues in palliative care and medical education.

Curtis will be recognized for holding the first endowed chair in pulmonary and critical care medicine at a reception following Block’s lecture.

For more information, please visit the new Palliative Care Center for Excellence website: http://www.uwpalliativecarecenter.com/ .

Dr. Curtis Honored with Endowed Chair

[September 2012]  J. Randall Curtis, M.D., M.P.H., Professor of Medicine, has been named as the first holder of the A. Bruce Montgomery-American Lung Association Endowed Chair in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine.  Dr. Curtis is an Adjunct Professor in three departments; the Department of Biobehavioral Nursing and Health Systems in the School of Nursing, the Department of Health Services in the School of Public Health, and the Department of Bioethics and Humanities in the School of Medicine.  Dr. Curtis is the Section Head for Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at Harborview Medical Center and the Director of the new UW Palliative Care Center of Excellence.  Dr. Curtis’ research focuses on improving palliative and end-of-life care for patients with critical illness and their families and improving communication about palliative and end-of-life care for patients with chronic and life-limiting illnesses including COPD, heart failure, AIDS, and cancer.  He has an active research program with over 15 years of continuous funding from the National Institutes of Health and is currently Principal Investigator for 3 grants from the National Institutes of Health including two R01 Awards and a K24 Award.

UW Establishes Palliative Care Center of Excellence

[April 2012]  The University of Washington recognizes the importance of palliative care for patients with life-threatening illness and the value that it can bring to the lives of patients and their families.  To enhance research, education and patient-centered care, the University of Washington has established a Palliative Care Center of Excellence. The Center will leverage its nationally recognized experts in these domains of palliative care to become a national leader. The goal of this Center is to enhance current research while providing increased opportunities to develop new research collaborations thereby increasing research funding and productivity.  This Center will also integrate, coordinate and enhance education in palliative care across UW Health Science Schools with a focus on interprofessional education, further strengthening our health science education programs and making us a national leader in this area.  Finally, the Center will integrate, coordinate, and augment the clinical palliative care provided throughout UW Medicine and in the region through key activities such as development and implementation of standards, program evaluation, and program development support.  The Palliative Care Center of Excellence will be lead by J. Randall Curtis, MD, MPH, professor of medicine in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine and by Dr. Anthony L. Back, MD, professor of medicine in the Division of Medical Oncology.  Drs. Curtis and Back are national leaders in palliative care and were recently recognized by awards from the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine.  In addition, the Center will incorporate leadership and membership from across all of the Health Science Schools and work toward increased interdisciplinary and interprofessional collaborations.

Palliative care is care that focuses on improving the quality of life and quality of care for patients with life-threatening or life-limiting illness and their families through the prevention and relief of suffering, communication about goals of care, and early identification and assessment and treatment of pain and other problems, physical, psychosocial and spiritual.

Cherry Blossom. (n.d.). Wikipedia. Retrieved Sep 28, 2011, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherry_blossom

UW cherry tree photo credits for this web site:   Luis Antonio Rodríguez Ochoa [luisar]  via Creative Commons

AAHPM Award for Excellence in Scientific Research in Palliative Care

[October 2011]  Dr. Curtis has been selected as the recipient of the 2012 Award for Excellence in Scientific Research in Palliative Care by the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine (AAHPM).  Dr. Curtis is professor of medicine, section head of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at Harborview Medical Center, and co-director for clinical research training.  He is a renowned authority on critical, palliative, and end-of-life care and a past president of the American Thoracic Society.  He will receive the award and present a lecture at the AAHPM Annual Assembly in Denver next March.