 |
Dennis Robbins, PhD, MPHExclusive Representation
Keynote Fee : $10,000 plus expenses Fee Note Travels From: AZ |
Topics
- Ethics / Values
- Hospice / End of Life Care
- Medicare
- Policy
- Emcee / Facilitator
- Management
- Complementary / Integrative Medicine
Formats
- Keynote
- Half Day
- Full Day
Products
* Click on the Product to Order
Programs
End of Life Decision Making: Learning from the legal and ethical legacyMore than 30 years have passed since we ventured into the thicket of legal liability and ethical quandaries surrounding end of life decision making. Technology, confusion, frustration and fear have fueled an ongoing debate spawned by an unfortunate circumstance involving a young woman in New Jersey in a persistent vegetative state (PVS) who was kept alive by "artificial means" for more than ten years. A host of other cases from across the nation shaped guidance on how to most appropriately treat end of life decisions, ensure patient autonomy while insulating against potential or perceived legal liability. Despite this guidance, clarification and the advent of advance directives we still struggle with making these extremely emotionally and financially costly issues. Misunderstanding, and misperception concerning legal liability and clinical responsibility still prevail as do a litany of medically inappropriate tactics ranging from slow codes, chemical codes, designer codes (codes blue, light blue, medium blue), and other unjustifiable strategies including asking vulnerable patients and or their family members if they want "nothing" or "everything" done, neither of which we ever do. We have tools and strategies to do much better, clinically, legally and ethically...
This session will explore the legal and ethical legacy, and examine a range of strategies and options that can be employed to help us make better, more appropriate, prudent, and more comfortable decisions. Dr. Robbins will discuss ways to facilitate process that empowers rather than disenfranchises, diminishes or overwhelms the dying patient, innovative ways to identify impasses and uncertainties through employing clinical ethics rounds, developing integrated consent policies, conflict resolution strategies, and demystifying who is in charge and who can decide. He will also discuss developing guiding policies and procedures and other viable strategies to shape and direct the way in which we treat a wide range of medical, ethical and personal issues that arise in these contexts. Knowing how to navigate the legal and ethical terrain, having appropriate advance directives in place and ensuring clinical propriety help us move beyond tenaciously held personal values or beliefs and help us transform perceived helplessness into empowerment, helping patients, their loved ones and caregivers begin to integrating loss into life.
Facing the impending loss of a loved often invites uncertainty, conflict and despair. Several lessons hospice has taught can shape a more positive experience and help maximize one's remaining existence and those of his or her family. Making the most of this remaining precious little time with a loved one or dear friend must be a priority as must the ability to begin integrate their impending loss into ongoing life. Growing controversy involving patient autonomy, wishes and rights as well as the family coupled with the demand for high quality, effective and appropriate care has intensified the need for health care stakeholders to be more both more circumspective and attentive to a wide spectrum of issues that arise in caring for the terminally ill patient The struggle between personal and professional conflict under a cloud of perceived (often misperceived) legal liability, cost and payment related pressures and unresolved conflict and grief can exacerbate an already tense situation. It is also important that health care institutions and organizations develop guiding policies and procedures and viable strategies to shape and direct the way in which we treat a wide range of medical, ethical and personal issues that arise in these contexts.
Dr. Robbins will discuss all of this and more as he believes we must move beyond facile and tenaciously held personal values or beliefs and blend knowledge of the legal and ethical terrain with clinical propriety. He will also present ideas on identifying diverse ways to preclude and adjudicate conflict and minimize dehumanizing systems.
Dr. Robbins brings an eclectic background to the CAM area. With one foot on the conventional side and another in CAM, Dr Robbins stirs and blends a mix of professional, ethical and consumer driven ingredients into a vibrant and dynamic session. Dr Robbins rich experience blending his CAM courses at Arizona State University, his experience as a professor of "natural medicine" and his consulting with nutritional, biointeractive, biotechnology and alternative medicine school education offers a broad approach to this emerging field. While developing a wellness center at The Warm Mineral Springs Spa that brought visitors across the globe Dr Robbins befriended a. prominent and respected medicine man and got on the fast track to an exciting domain and way of thinking. He was later adopted into the White Wolf Clan and exposed to a wide range of traditional healing techniques and sacred ceremonies. His conventional Harvard medical based training coupled with Ozark inspired Native American healing practices as well as Asian Medicine offer a distinctive blend to cultivate and expand your interest in this dynamic field. Dr Robbins can also discuss some of the problems surrounding the promise and peril of a new age mentality, the business of CAM and some useful integrative medicine concerns. These will be examined in light of the plats du jour of consumer, driven care, cost issues, and healthcare quality. Dennis has a distinctive background in diverse sectors of health care that traverses clinical, administrative, and professional components. Experiential and Team building activities can be arranged in concert with this program incorporating some of the traditional Native American ceremonies.
Capitalizing On Lessons of the Past: Clues from History, Law and EthicsSo much of the time we are driven by responding to the newest heath care mantras du jour, focusing on the foliage and forgetting the roots of our professions. A good leader will maximize his or her resources. To do so we must revisit and recapture the foundations and values endemic to our professions. Doing so gives us permission to do the right thing and to move beyond fear and frustration into creative and proactive problem solving. By recapturing, refining, augmenting and re-packaging kernels of wisdom gleaned from wellness, hospice, medical innovation and business and coupled those with unmet needs of health literacy, transparency, quality, such topics as Consumerism, Health Literacy, Transparency, Safety and Empowerment, Selected Ethical and Medical Jurisprudential Issues, Issues on the Cost Quality Interface, Payment systems, the Technology/Pharmaceutical Approval Process, Reimbursement, Complementary, Alternative and Integrative Medicine Issues, and End of Life Decision Making issues will be explored. By integrating strategies and options that can be employed to help us make and savor better, more appropriate, prudent, and more comfortable decisions.
Speaker Information
Dennis Robbins, Ph.D., M.P.H. has been a visionary in blending ethics with policy and a wide range of care issues for almost three decades. He was instrumental in developing the Hospice Movement in the U.S and helped shape the Hospice Medicare benefit. As a past member of the international Workgroup on Dying Death and Bereavement, he has written and lectured extensively on hospice and end of life decision making. Dr. Robbins was involved with the Hospice Medicine rotation at Harvard and helped create two hospices. He also has extensive experience as a clinical ethicist as well as working on health policy and regulatory agendas traversing many sectors of the healthcare continuum. His extensive work on ethics, payment systems and reimbursement led to his being honored by Managed Healthcare Executive Magazine as among the top ten "keenest thinkers" in managed care.
Dr. Robbins has been influential in developing healthcare change agendas at the national and state arena, shaping legislation and creating model policies and procedures. He has been an advisor to the President's Commission on Ethical Issues in Biomedicine, Biomedical and Behavioral Research, and the White House Educational Advisory Committee on Complementary and Alternative Medicine,. and has served on the educational advisory board for the National Endowment for the Humanities and other healthcare foundations and has been most influential in how we deal effectively with ethical issues that arise on the fringes of life as well as advocating for the terminally ill patient and their families. He holds a PhD in Philosophy from Boston College and a postdoctoral Masters in Public Health from Harvard where he was a National Fund for Medical Education Fellow in the Kennedy Interfaculty Program as a visiting scholar and research fellow in ethics. Dr Robbins has written eight books and over 250 articles, chapters and reviews in healthcare, and has been a columnist and national advisor for several healthcare journals.
Testimonials
"Dr. Robbins has assisted with content development and lecturing to national medical audiences throughout the years. He possesses a keen sense of awareness and understanding about the health care industry and keeps a finger on the pulse of change."
- PRIME
"Dr. Robbins is that rare individual who is able to understand the worlds of healthcare structure, law; ethics, finance, and people. His insightful and incisive analyses of emerging controversies and challenges in managed care are unparalleled."
- Case Management Society of America