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During the best of times, people searching for employment used to ask themselves, “What can this company do for me?” with regard to securing a corner office, an expense account, or numerous other perks. But young employees currently entering the work force – the ‘Millennial generation‘ or ‘Generation Y’ – are asking questions more geared toward social issues: “What will this company enable me to do to improve the world at large, while pursuing philanthropic interests?”
Today, businesses are no longer fundamentally attractive to this new breed of potential employees for writing checks to charities or for sponsoring tables at benefits. Now, companies must not only talk the talk, but they must let their employees walk the walk as well – paying staff their normal wages to volunteer during working hours. But as the age old saying goes: “you reap what you sow,” and the benefits come full circle so everyone wins.
As evidenced in a survey referenced in The Wall Street Journal, “For many young job hunters, a prominent employee-volunteerism program is a strong selling point. A 2006 survey of 1,800 13-to-25-year-olds found that 79 percent want to work for a company that cares about how it affects or contributes to society. Sixty-four percent said their employer’s social and environmental activities inspire loyalty.”
One company that goes above and beyond when it comes to affording their employees the ability to volunteer while footing the bill is Patagonia. According to their website, “employees can leave their jobs to work for the environmental group of their choice. Patagonia continues to pay their salaries and benefits while they’re gone, and environmental groups worldwide get them for free. To date, more than 750 employees have taken part in the program.” Last July, in response to the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf, Patagonia sent up to 10 employees per week to Louisiana, paying them their regular salaries in addition to all of their expenses while in the Gulf region, to assist their environmental partner, the Louisiana Bucket Brigade in creating an Oil Spill Crisis Map to detect where the need for help was most imminent.
What goes around comes around. Patagonia reckons that, “volunteers return with a powerful sense of purpose and accomplishment that inspires their colleagues and encourages other employees to work on behalf of the natural world.”
At first glance, it may seem counter-intuitive to some employers to send their staff out to work for other people while on the clock, but evidence that doing so comes full circle in a highly beneficial light may sway even the most traditional thinkers. According to a study done at The University of Florida, “employees who volunteered felt more connected to their companies and were more likely to work harder on tasks… They spoke positively about their employer in public and were less likely to daydream, cyber loaf or take extra time off work… Employees felt a stronger bond with their company because they believed it shared their ideals in caring about the community, and they were more likely to be better employees because of it.”
Additionally, sending workers outside the office broadens not only their perspective, but also their skill set. ‘On the job’ training takes place on a much greater canvas, with the world as a backdrop. Evan Hochberg, National Director of Community Involvement, Deloitte Services LP offers, “Volunteering with non-profits is important for the community, but it also greatly benefits the volunteer… Skills-based volunteering, in particular, can give younger employees a chance to develop their management, teamwork, communication and leadership skills, as well as their technical skills.”
Companies are cluing in to this trend, and recognizing how it will be a boon to business. “A Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship 2009 study found 83 percent of large corporations think it is important to have employees volunteer. In that same study, 62 percent of employees said they’d rather work for a company that allows volunteer opportunities.”
While some small businesses may not have the financial means to pay employees to volunteer outside the office, the benefits don’t necessarily come packaged in an ‘all or nothing’ scenario. Employers can organize company wide events, encouraging employees from all levels within to participate on common ground, volunteering in support of a charitable cause. Working toward a common goal with group effort will help foster the same outcome of increased camaraderie, enhanced company loyalty, and broadened perspective. As Winston Churchill said, “You make a living by what you get. You make a life by what you give.” To attract today’s best employees, the work/life balance must be understood, supported and lauded.
Tags: wall street journal, beth shea, volunteering, patagonia, inhabitat, employees, innovation, evan hochberg
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Friday, January 7, 2011
Paying Your Employees to Volunteer Can Reap Big Rewards : Lifestyle :: American Express OPEN Forum
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Death Panels We the People Have Created - Not the Government
I cringed and responded vehemently to any notion of "Death Panel" mentioned in blogs and forums since the announcement of the inclusion of advanced care planning into the reimbursable wellness visit. This time it was imperative that people heard the truth - that advanced care planning does not involve deciding how to die early but how to live on our own terms.
In haste, I spoke to doctors in 3 different counties on yesterday and today letting them know advanced directives workshops would be scheduled in the community in order to educate the public and make the wellness visit much more efficient. The patient would go into their visit armed with information and the important questions to help them understand and more importantly help their primary care provider understand personal wishes for options of care.
And today the news comes:
For Immediate Release:
January 5, 2011
and Reminds All Americans of the Value of Advance Care Planning(Alexandria, Va) ? "We are surprised that the Administration has decided to reverse the decision to include voluntary advance care planning consultations as part of a Medicare beneficiaries' annual wellness exam," remarked J. Donald Schumacher, president and CEO of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization.
On Wednesday I will go back to the 20 physicians with whom I have spoken in the past 2 days and say, "Sorry, we as a people do not want to let you know how we want to be treated at the end of life. Whether I want everything possible to save or extend my life or whether I want nothing; you may never know".
Hopefully, those of us who care about our wishes being followed can make a stand and say what our choices will be and the providers we trust to make decisions on our behalf will have the intelligence and compassion to listen.
My condolences to those who think they won the fight.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
End-of-life advice is good medicine - Chicago Sun-Times
End-of-life advice is good medicine
' + first_letter + ' Jan 2, 2011 02:53AM
Death panels. Government-sponsored euthanasia. Pulling the plug on grandma.
Those were just some of the blatantly false terms conservatives threw around last year to scare Congress into stripping a provision out of the health-reform bill that would have allowed Medicare to reimburse doctors for providing voluntary, end-of-life counseling to their patients.
The scare tactics worked. Now, the Obama administration has issued similar Medicare guidelines authorizing payment to doctors who provide voluntary end-of-life counseling during annual check-ups.
Not surprisingly, critics of the new guidelines, which went into effect Saturday, wasted no time reviving alarmist rhetoric that these private doctor-patient conversations would be used to goad seniors into foregoing potentially life-sustaining care in their final days.
Nonsense.
Encouraging seniors to think about what, if any, life-sustaining measures they would want taken if they were gravely ill isn’t the same as encouraging them to forgo treatment.
Those who want every measure taken to save their lives will still be free to make that choice. Those who would prefer not to live in a vegetative state will have that option, too. And people won’t be forced to talk their doctors about their options one way or the other.
End-of-life counseling is simply a way to educate patients about their options, so they can take the next step of drafting a “living will” and appointing a health-care proxy who can make treatment decisions on their behalf when they are no longer able.
Only about one-third of Americans have a living will, which means critical end-of-life decisions are often delegated to family members in the midst of a crisis.
It’s no surprise, then, that people who make their wishes known in advance are more likely to receive the kind of end-of-life care they want than people who don’t.
End-of-life counseling also has the potential to lower health-care costs by reducing the likelihood that patients will receive costly treatment and tests they don’t want.
A 2009 study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine found that late-stage cancer patients who received end-of-life counseling incurred health-care costs that were 36 percent lower in the last week of life than patients who didn’t.
Those kinds of savings become critically important to driving down the nation’s escalating health-care costs. More than 25 percent of annual Medicare expenses, for example, are attributable to end-of-life care for the 5 percent of beneficiaries who die each year.
Many doctors would discuss advance planning with patients whether or not they were reimbursed for their time. But we see no harm in giving doctors additional incentives to initiate these important conversations, particularly when it could lead to more compassionate care for patients and significant cost savings for Medicare.
Wanted: A National Respite System
Darren Hauck for The New York Times Millie Fischer, 63, left, and her mother Mildred Gordon, 88, right, at St. Ann Center for Intergenerational Care in Milwaukee in 2008.
The concept of a “holiday” is an elusive one for the over 28 million people in the United States who provide care for someone age 75 or older. A 2009 National Alliance for Caregiving/AARP study found that 88 percent of family caregivers never get a break from this full-time job. As readers here know all too well, the non-stop effort can take both a physical and emotional toll over time.
Jill Kagan, who has chaired the National Respite Coalition since 1994, hopes to change all that — not household by household, but at the policy level. She is determined to help caregivers who can’t afford private options find a way to catch their breath.
Respite advocates face a Goliath-sized challenge on a decidedly David-sized budget. Authorized by Congress in 2006, the Lifespan Respite Care Program was intended to support and expand the delivery of respite services nationwide. In each of the last two years, the federal Administration on Aging has provided $2.5 million to the program, the bulk of it granted to individual states to develop their own initiatives.
Twenty-four states have received these grants, but the funding has not yet made respite services widely available to caregivers, according to Ms. Kagan.
“Each state has a $200,000 grant over three years,” she said. “They are doing some incredible things to identify, streamline and coordinate services, do public awareness and maybe leverage some other federal, state and private funding sources. But very few will actually be able to provide services to very many people directly at this time.”
Respite care is in desperate need of a systematic solution, Ms. Kagan believes. The Lifespan program is a first step. The immediate goal for state grantees is the creation of what Ms. Kagan calls “model infrastructures” ending the duplication of services and bringing about some coordination. Progress varies by state: Those with more active existing respite programs should be able to fund services more quickly than those only starting to address the issue.
The respite program covers caregivers “across the lifespan” — that is, people who care for disabled children as well as for parents and spouses.
According to studies by The Commonwealth Fund and Evercare, a subsidiary of the insurer United Healthcare, these caregivers are less likely to be employed, likelier to miss work if they are employed, and often don’t have medical insurance. They are less healthy as a group than people who aren’t caregivers.
Ms. Kagan says there is a particular need among those who care for the elderly, especially if the caregiver is older as well. Among those older than 66 and experiencing stress related to caregiving responsibilities, there is a 60 percent higher mortality rate, compared to non-caregivers who are in the same age group.
“Meaningful quality respite is the first thing I would make sure every caregiver has access to,” said Ms. Kagan. “It is what most caregivers have on the top of their lists. There is a continuum of other services that caregivers desperately need, but without just a moment to step back and take a rest, how are they supposed to figure out what they need, let alone have the energy, time, and resources to seek it out?”
The A.R.C.H. National Respite Network’s “The ABCs of Respite” is a primer on what kind of help is available and how caregivers might avail themselves of various services. The network’s locator service helps families find and pay for respite services regardless of the age of the person being cared for. The National Caregiver Support Program, administered through local Area Agencies on Aging, focuses specifically on funding respite for those caring for aging friends or relatives.
There are also volunteer and faith-based programs that provide occasional respite.
None of it comes near to making a dent in the needs of the caregiver population, according to Ms. Kagan. The goal of the National Respite Coalition is “to keep respite policy and funding alive,” Ms. Kagan said. “The grassroots movement has grown, and we have formed over twenty active state respite coalitions.”
The coalition hopes to see funding for the Lifespan program raised to at least $5 million next year. But with the economy still in the doldrums and a new Congress reluctant to fund new social programs, Ms. Kagan said, the prospects seem increasingly unlikely.
Monday, January 3, 2011
Contest without a Prize - Just rewards
Create a stamp to promote hospice awareness.
November 2011 is Hospice Awareness month. Too soon to talk about it?
As 2010 drew to a close, this video with representation from many people
regarding what hospice means gave me time to think about other
creative ways to promote hospice awareness.
Is it possible to have hospices and communities create their
own products to promote awareness of this wonderful, life
affirming benefit called hospice?
So here's the contest:
Create a stamp to promote hospice awareness.
Promote it everywhere including in a reply back to
this post. The best stamp submitted wins.
If we can get a decent collection of possibilities then
I will post the stamps on a web page with a poll to vote.
No prize but lots of rewards for getting the word out.
Okay - what is your design? Post your link here
in a reply to this post. I can't wait to see what
folks can come up with.
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Words to live by - Bible Verse Reminds Me of Hospice Volunteer Qualities
King James Bible
Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things [are] honest, whatsoever things [are] just, whatsoever things [are] pure, whatsoever things [are] lovely, whatsoever things [are] of good report; if [there be] any virtue, and if [there be] any praise, think on these things.
Volunteers choose to serve and I believe that following this wonderful verse, the volunteer can only increase the satisfaction of patients, families, and themselves.
Hospice Volunteer Training Online
http://volunteertrainingonline.com/courses
Medicare to fund end-of-life planning consultations with … | Senior Home Care Information
Medicare to fund end-of-life planning consultations with …
Tagged with: care providers madeleineMedicare will now fund end-of-life health care planning consultations. Pre-planning, family discussions of these (end-of-life) issues, won’t ease the pain of dealing with medical crisis; what is does do is lay the groundwork for making informed decisions based on what the patient really wants, what the patient’s priorities and beliefs require. It is a road map through both crisis and longterm care.
Medical care gets a new twist in 2011 with the implementation of paid consultations with physicians to discuss end-of-life planning, and the new law is a far cry from hysteria-triggered “death panel” paranoia that makes frenzied headlines. At its most basic level, it has everything to do with ensuring that patients get the care they choose and families have guidelines on dealing with medical crisis.
On January 1, 2011, new regulations allow Medicare recipients to have once every five years voluntary end-of-life planning, with physicians being reimbursed for time spent in consultation on these important issues. What can be discussed? Hospital versus hospice, type of care and care providers, and virtually every conceivable issue related to health care.
Having had decades of experience with catastrophic illness and the deaths of loved ones, I have learned the valued of meeting these discussions head-on.
End-of-life planning was clearly discussed, sometimes with tears, by editor Christine Anne Piesyk and her mother, Madeleine. “My mother knew exactly what she wanted and didn’t want.”
For many years, before “pre-planning entered the linguistic landscape, my family took care of my grandmother at home. Cooking downstairs, running hot meals upstairs to her apartment, and later, responding in the middle of the night to the tapping of her cane on the floor above us. She needed water. Or assistance to the bathroom. My mother and I ironed her house dresses and aprons, and when her chignon of decades could not be managed, I was the one who cut her elegant, fanny-length silver hair to a comfortable bob.
When the time came, we had few options but to place her in a nursing facility, though we had never discussed it with her. And she would have fought it had she been able, fought it with what was left of her mind. In those days of restraints and what seems now to be archaic care, she passed away in a shadowy room with my mother holding her hand. her end-of-life care evolved, without a plan.
I wish we had talked back then.
The second learning curve began when my father was in the prime of retirement; he lost his leg, but that “prime” left him fighting mad and took him straight into a fiesty recovery. It was less easy when lung cancer and the first of three strokes hit. He survived the first cancer, but relapsed years later when he was simultaneously in irretrievable mental decline. Still, the question was raised, “shall we operate on the lung again?” My mother and I spent hours at his side, though his only communication with us was a look in his eyes. We could read those eyes. Seventeen years and no hope of recovery eased our choice.
We opted to let him go; to provide palliative care to ease pain, but not subject him to further surgery when he could not participate in any recovery. Indeed, cancer surgery would not make him walk again, or restore his mind, and would create more difficulties with no quality of life. His end-of-life care was superb and and peaceful at the hands of Catholic nuns, a fitting match for a man with a strong Catholic faith and heritage. We were learning to talk now.
Over the next few years,many of my friends began to lose their parents, some fighting to prolong life indefinitely, others making irreversible decisions without really thinking about the consequences. Several admitted that end-of-life decisions were never discussed, a taboo subject too painful or difficult to address. I watched, and having been the the first and the youngest in this line of parental loss, I witnessed their struggles and gained early wisdom.
Thus when my uncle, after decades of WWII-induced mental illness flanked by cancer and Alzheimer Disease, came to the end of his life, my mother and I held tight to a plan on how we hoped he would pass. Peacefully. No heroic measures.
We had learn to talk about “it.”
Call it luck. Call it serendipity. Call it good doctors. Or the right facility and staff. There were no challenges, no “try a feeding tube,” no “what about hydration?” questions. In an age of no restraints, he would throw himself off his bed, or slide between his bedrails, creating further injury. The solution, from a creative palliative team, was a bed-less private room with thick cushy physical therapy mats placed wall to wall. No tubes, no monitors, no IVs. Just wall-to-wall softness.
On his last two days, I stayed with him around the clock. Only on his last morning did he fall into that near breathless before death state. My mother, ill herself, sat in a hastily acquired rocking chair, a lap robe tucked around her; I lay on the floor, arms about my uncle, talking to him, placing periodic kisses on his forehead, telling him how much we loved him. I felt his last breath on my cheek. He passed peacefully, just as I hoped he would in those last hours, slipping away from us after far too many painful years.
Thank heavens we had had so many discussions by then.
All of these events were surrounded by ever intensifying discussions of end-of-life, of response to sudden catastrophic illness, and response to slowly evolving illness in aging. We talked about it, became versed in health proxies and medical directives, and knew with absolute certainty that we must direct our path through aging and dying. We asked questions. We filled out and filed paperwork (my information is updated every few years). Today, everyone who might have a hand in my future care knows where my “papers” are and more importantly, what I want. I’ve been quite specific. Yet when I speak to other people, I remain amazed at how many simply can’t have that discussion, not with their doctors, not with their families. It is as if having the discussion makes them vulnerable to the cycle of life when they would rather fight it, deny it or ignore it altogether.
Pre-planning, family discussions of these issues, won’t ease the pain of dealing with medical crisis; what is does do is lay the groundwork for making informed decisions based on what the patient really wants, what the patient’s priorities and beliefs require. It is a road map through both crisis and longterm care.
Advanced care directives are critical components of end-of-life planning.
Despite all the preparations made by my mother and myself, the one thing that still created issues at the end of her life was Alzheimer Disease. In the absence of rational thinking, of pervasive dementia, what was said or written and approved by her lost all meaning for her. It did, however, reinforce my relief in having dozens of earlier “sane” discussions as my guideposts. I had her health proxy; I had a clearly defined set of health directions (if this happens, do that); I had Conservatorship, Guardianship, and Power of Attorney (terms all baby boomers should know and understand) at varying times. Copies were filed with her medical records at the doctors office, at the hospital and the nursing facilities we used. Everything was clearly discussed with her physicians long before implementation became necessary.
After five years of dementia, and with the full pre-arranged support of her physicians and medical staff, my mother passed peacefully, with no heroic measures by her choice; she passed surrounded by children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, in a room filled with fresh cut lilacs, spring breezes and birdsong. It was exactly what she wanted, and reflected every value she expressed throughout her life. The truth, had she wanted heroic measures, I would have been hard-pressed to implement them.
The work, the decisions, had long since been done. With the planning in place, all attention could be focused on simply loving my mother and easing her passing.
In the new health legislation coming into effect in 2011, and with a surge of baby boomers moving into their senior years, Medicare will now be required to pay once every five years for a medical visit specifically for discussion of end-of-life planning.
I find myself hoping that “legalizing” or medically approving the “the talk” will bring this all-important issue to greater public awareness. I am continually amazed at how many people are afraid or uncomfortable with the subject. I am amazed at the need to insure the ability to have this conversation, since in all of my experiences such discussions occurred as part of regular visits, well-before crisis erupted, no additional office visit required. But if funding this “consultation” will in fact get people talking, it is more than worth the effort and the price.
Apart from addressing the natural process of aging, health care and dying in the normal course of life, such discussion at earlier ages has equal import; so many things can impact the quality as well quantity of one’s life. A skiing accident, car crash, sudden stroke, heart attack — unexpected but life-changing events do happen. What criteria would you want used in determining critical care and longterm medical needs? An individual should wait until retirement to lay their medical preferences on the table. Not being of Medicare age should not preclude having these talks with family, nor should it preclude taking the initiative and filing a health proxy and directive with one’s physician.
The concept of quality of life and lifespan itself have different meaning and value to every individual. There is no “one size fits all,” and failure to plan, failure to have these discussions is to open the door to unwanted treatment or close the door on heroic measures that some people will want.
Congress has validated the need for end-of-life planning, and no one should fail to take advantage of this opportunity.
NOTE: Author/Editor Christine Anne Piesyk holds an M.A. in Individualized Studies in Aging/ Alzheimer Disease and Caregiving. The opinions voiced in this article are solely those of Ms. Piesyk.
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