title: Hospital executive leadership: a critical component for improving care at the end of life.
abstract: End-of-life care and its planning by individuals, in concert with their families and professional healthcare givers, pose important social, legal, and ethical issues. The authors evaluate the results of a multi-year (1997-2001) collaborative effort among representatives of Georgia healthcare providers, healthcare payers, and the general public that was designed to (a) improve end-of-life care through a community-focused field effort to increase public awareness, execution, and institutional management of advance directives and (b) impact institutional and state government systems and policies around end-of-life care. The authors conclude that a proactive presence of senior management is integral in implementing systematic change in hospital-based end-of-life care and offer practical recommendations to hospital leaders to affect real change in their institutions.
authors.affiliation: Georgia Health Policy Center, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University, Atlanta, USA.
authors.forename: James P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Cooney
authors.forename: Glenn M
authors.initials: GM
authors.lastname: Landers
authors.forename: Julianna M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Williams
mesh_terms: D016223:Advance Directives; D005845:Georgia; D006740:Hospital Administrators; D006801:Humans; D007591:Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations; D007857:Leadership; D010360:Patient Transfer; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care; D013727:Terminal Care / Q000592:standards*; D014481:United States