South Carolina Medical Association Foundation

Physician Practice Innovations

The project will support the S. C. Medical Association in empowering physicians to take a leadership role in increasing the number of patients with advance care planning directives hat will identify, capture, and honor their end-of-life care choices. Major partners include the following: Respecting Choices, an internationally recognized, evidence based advance care planning program developed by the Gundersen Health System; The S. C. Office of Revenue and Fiscal Affairs which will process and interpret health, demographic, and census data with a sophisticated infrastructure that supports planning, intervention, and evaluation of health programs; and the S. C. Coalition for the Care of the Seriously Ill which is developing uniform processes for communication, consent, and decision making for use by physicians caring for seriously ill patients. Project components include extensive training, education and outreach and four pilot sites in family medicine practices. This partnership will be physician led and will create an evidence-based initiative utilizing best practices and suitable for replication in other states.