National Advance Care Planning Day sees Women’s College Hospital as leaders: bringing the first consumer-created End-of-Life website to Family Doctors.
TORONTO APRIL 16…Women’s College Hospital (WCH) is the first to embark on a project with Family Doctors and patients to evaluate the only consumer-created website for end of life education, BestEndings.com, developed by Kathy Kastner.
With the trend to involve patients in all aspects of health care – from research to policy – selected WCH Family Doctors will ask their patients to help evaluate BestEndings, via paper or electronic survey. Feedback and input will be used to improve the overall user experience.
Dr Chen championed BestEndings.com in ‘Dragon’s Den’ type pitch session. Dr Chen, Assistant Professor, Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of Toronto, is winner of the 6th annual Excellence in Education awards recognize WCH staff who demonstrate a commitment to education, create an environment that enhances understanding and teamwork and who have a broader impact on WCH’s and women’s education and interprofessional activities.
“Women’s College Hospital is leading the way by hosting a project like this. Working together is the first step to creating a mutual understanding of improving patient-doctor end of life conversations and being able to care for and treat patients in the best way possible. “ Says Dr Chen.
“Kathy has a history of creating award-winning patient-centered education: she brings a ‘layperson’s perspective to end of life issues, along with curating evidence-based resources and an electronic Advance Directives form.”
About Kathy Kastner: With a background in journalism and entrepreneurship, Kathy pioneered North America’s first hospital-based patient-education television networks, implemented for 20 years in top teaching hospitals across North America. Launching BestEndings.com in 2009, Kastner sits as a patient representative on WestPark Health Center Palliative and Supportive Steering Committee, the Toronto International Summit on Leadership Education for Physicians, and two terms on the Board of the College of Occupational Therapists. She is an invited patient speaker at Stanford’s MedicineX, Health2.0 and Patients 2.0. She has been published in peer-reviewed journals including Canadian Medical Association, Journal of Participatory Medicine and Journal of Palliative Medicine. Kastner will represent patients again at the California Coalition for Compassionate Choices in May 2016.
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for more information: KathyK@bestendings.com • 416-878-8708