Kokua Mau

Copy COVID-19 Resources

On this regularly updated page we list COVID-19 resources helpful for our members and supporters. If you know of resources to add, please share them with us. Subscribe to our eNewsletter for regular updates.

Thank you to all of our amazing health care professionals and your incredible contributions in the face of the COVID-19 crisis. We wish we could give you all a real lei for the wonderful work you are doing. Mahalo nui loa.

A lei from Honolulu's Lei Day May 1st

Coronavirus Disrupts Hard Decisions About End-Of-Life Treatment

April 30, 2020, NPR, Morning Edition. The coronavirus means more people are dying alone in ICUs. Families are having to make abrupt decisions at a distance about terminal care. Palliative care specialists try to adapt. Listen to the 4 minute NPR program.

Listen to the short, well done interview Critical Care Doctor Explains Directives Followed In Near-Death Cases on All Things Considered NPR Story with Dr. Jessica Zitter, a critical and palliative care specialist takes listener questions about advanced directives that doctors follow in critical situations. (8 minutes)

Toolkits

The Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC) has a tailor made COVID-19 Response Resources toolkit.

CAPC describes the tools, skills, and training health systems should deploy immediately to ensure appropriate symptom management and patient communication in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Updated daily.

What’s in the CAPC Toolkit?

  • Communication Tips
  • Symptom Management Protocols
  • Palliative Care Team Tools
  • Telemedicine
  • Patient and Family Support Resources from the CDC
  • Medicare COVID-19 Waivers
  • Federal COVID-19 Guidance
  • Setting-Specific Guidance
  • Role of Palliative Care

Ariadne Labs’ Serious Illness Care Program developed a COVID-19 Response Toolkit to support health systems and clinicians in addressing the communication needs of patients in the community and those in the hospital. The toolkit includes:

Information on Coronavirus is geared at the general public.

Respecting Choices published an open source COVID-19 Resource toolkit on their website https://respectingchoices.org/covid-19-resources/. It contains quick education and associated conversation guides for proactive care planning conversations for those with serious illness at high risk for COVID-19. Their ‘Help with Breathing and CPR nationally certified decision aids’, along with some patient facing information.

Communication Skills

April 12, 2020: Kokua Line: Naming a health-care proxy more important than ever

Read the article in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser’s Kokua Line by Christine Donnelly, from April 12, 2020. All COVID-19 coverage has free access at the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.

VitalTalk open source primer.

To health care professionals everywhere: these are unprecedented times. There’s no roadmap. We’re facing conversations that we never expected – or wanted – to have.

Vital Talk created the COVID-ready communication skills: A playbook of VitalTalk Tips. This free guide helps professionals start conversations and provides some practical advice on how to talk about some difficult topics related to COVID-19. Since 3/30 they have added a number of short videos. The 13-page guide is available in 14 languages.

Vital Talk has 2 decades of experience studying and teaching communication and crowdsourced this resource.

VitalTalk Tips App

For clinicians who care for patients with serious illness and their families, having great communication skills makes a difference – your patients will understand their medical situation better, and build trust with you faster, and you’ll be able to guide them to medical decisions that match their values. VitalTalk has created an app that contains communication skill tips, focused on the moments where clinicians most often get stuck. The VitalTalk Tips app is available for iPhone and for Android devices.

HPNA COVID-19 Patient Care Guides

The Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association developed a series of Primary Palliative Nursing COVID-19 Patient Care Guides. Written by national nursing experts in the hospice and palliative nursing field, these guides highlight key nursing information about anxiety, communication, pain, delirium, dyspnea, nausea, terminal secretions and nursing care and support at end-of-life. This information is on the HPNA website. 

End of Life Nursing Education Consortium (ELNEC) Resources

The ELNEC team (End of Life Nursing Education Consortium) extends their support for all clinicians providing palliative care and hopes you make sure to take care of yourselves during this challenging time.End of Life Nursing Education Consortium

ELNEC has provided free resources for support, so please take advantage and share with colleagues.

Zoom Get-togethers in Hawai‘i

Calling social workers in hospice and palliative care.

Monday, September 14
3 PM

Please join us for a Zoom get together of social workers. All are welcome and RSVP to Hope Young. This is a wonderful chance to talk about what you are experiencing now with COVID-19 as well as share resources and get feedback from colleagues.

Kōkua Mau Virtual Monthly Meetings

Thur. Aug. 27
3-5ish PM

6/25/ What is happening with Advance Care Planning in the time of COVID-19? View the 6 local experts in June 2020 via our YouTube Channel.

7/30 Mapping Palliative Care in Hawai‘i

  • Where is palliative care available?
  • How many people are receiving palliative care and in what settings?
  • View the recording

This is the first time that we have done a statewide mapping project or calculated how much palliative care is being provided where and what the gaps are.

Chelsea Hirano presented the results of her research over the last 6 months looking at in-patient, out-patient and community based settings. Chelsea is a graduate nursing student in community health at UH Nursing. This is the first time this type of research has been done in Hawaii.

PS: Please make sure you update to the latest version of the zoom app (5.2 as of 8/6/20). Zoom is very moody lately, if it is not up-to-date. More about that on our website zoom made easy.

POLST

National POLST Resources: POLST and COVID-19

To help address questions about POLST during the coronavirus pandemic, polst.org provided Frequently Asked Questions documents for health care professionals and patients on their COVID-19 website.

  • National POLST: Long-Term Care Facility Guidance for POLST & COVID-19 (PDF file)
  • National POLST COVID-19 Statement (3/30) PDF file
  • Guidance for Completing POLST Forms in Crisis Standards of Care (3/30) PDF file
  • Nursing Facility Specific tools

Other POLST Resources

Advance Care Planning (ACP)

Please consult our Kōkua Mau pages for the general public about Advance Care Planning, Advance Health Care Directives and POLST for in-depth information.

Advance Care Planning Best Practices Report with focus on Hawai‘i

C-TAC has released the full version of a report designed to identify strategies that could be used to boost the use of advance care planning (ACP), a practice that is now more important than ever as we face the uncertainties of the COVID-19 pandemic. Discern Health, a healthcare quality and research advisory organization, developed the report.

Hawai‘i features prominently in the report as we are leading the nation in Advance Care Planning in certain measures, although there is clearly a long way to go. Jeannette Koijane, Hope Young, Dr. Rae Seitz and Dr. Emese Somogyi were interviewed along with Dr. Angelo Volandes from ACP Decisions.

“Thoughtful conversations about goals of care are more important now than ever before as we face the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic,” said C-TAC Executive Director Jon Broyles. “This report identifies several key practices that can be used to promote advance care planning across the country and ensure that people receive the care they want in the setting that is right for them.”

COVID Conversations Toolbox from the Coalition for Compassionate Care of California (CCCC)

The COVID-19 pandemic makes the threat of becoming seriously ill frighteningly real – and greatly emphasizes the need to know each patient’s values and wishes regarding treatment options. Conversations around serious illness and medical treatment options can be very empowering. The CCCC‘s COVID Communications Toolbox provides easy access and support for healthcare providers and consumers, as they navigate decision-making during these these challenging times.

During the COVID crisis, CCCC is making free (until July 31) digital versions of their popular Decision Aids available to download and share with consumers. CCCC’s Decision Aids explain the complex topics of life-sustaining treatments using consumer-friendly language with neutral, evidence-based information. Topics include Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR), Ventilator, Artificial Hydration, and Tube Feeding. Available in multiple languages.

The Conversation Project

Download a brand new Conversation Project guide specific to COVID-19, to help people take action and be prepared. We can’t control how this pandemic plays out. But we can control who speaks for us if we’re unable to speak for ourselves, and we can take the time to make sure they know what matters most to us. Have this conversation today. Please look at their additional resources.

Telehealth

For up-to-date TELEHEALTH ‘Telehealth tab‘ on the CAPC COVID-19 Response Resources page

With physical distancing telehealth is more important every day. The Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC) becomes the one-stop site for starting or carrying on a telehealth program.

Virtually Perfect? Telemedicine for COVID-19
March 11, 2020, New England Journal of Medicine.

Webinars

We list upcoming webinars here. We migrated Recorded Webinars’ to our webinar page.

Upcoming Webinars:

8/24 & 25 CCCC Virtual Summit

Sharpening our visions for Compassionate Care in the Face of Serious Illness is the Coalition for Compassionate Care of California (CCCC) virtual summit for 2020. This special event is designed for physicians, nurses, social workers, nursing home administrators, chaplains, and others interested in education, clinical research, quality, and policy as it pertains to palliative care and advance care planning. 6 CEU/CMEs.

8/18 COVID-19 Webinars offered by JABSOM Geriatric Medicine from 2:00 – 2:30pm

The series COVID-19 Webinars offered by JABSOM Geriatric Medicine (2:00 – 2:30pm) is organized by Dr. Aida Wen and the Geriatrics Department at JABSOM and CEUs are available. More information (click on ‘Upcoming sessions‘ for details) and registration page

8/18 – Hospice Care in the Time of COVID – Ritchell Dignam, MD

For recorded webinars please visit our Webinar COVID-19 page

Hospice

The National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO) has created a dedicated page to the coronavirus. You can sign up to receive NHPCO’s COVID-19 updates by email.

NHPCO: Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Shared Decision-Making Tool (March 19, 2020) PDF file

Training

Free Training courses for healthcare professionals from CSU Shiley Institute for Palliative Care. 

The COVID-19 pandemic presents a severe healthcare crisis. Those most at risk from the virus – the elderly, frail, and/or those with underlying serious health problems – are the exact patient population that palliative care is designed to serve. To help clinicians quickly build basic palliative care skills and better serve patients and families affected by this crisis, CSU is offering Select Palliative Care Courses free of charge through June 30.

National Organizations

The National Coalition For Hospice & Palliative Care represents the 12 leading professional organizations dedicated to advancing the delivery of high-quality serious illness care to all who need it. Please visit their website for the latest COVID-19 information.

SWHPN: Resources for Hospice and Palliative Care Social Worker Professionals during the COVID-19 Crisis

The Social Work Hospice & Palliative Care Network is developing an ongoing list of resources for this dedicated page with tips for social workers on the front lines, and facilitators for virtual Social Work Open Discussions. Please reach out to info@swhpn.org to contribute or participate.

Malama Hawai‘i

COVID-19 Respond with Aloha

As COVID-19 impacts Hawai‘i and the global community, it is an important time to respond with aloha and take care of each other. Kanu Hawai‘i has accelerated plans for the annual Volunteer Week to support an on-going virtual volunteer response to support community needs and address economic impacts related to COVID-19. More

Let’s make Personal Protection Equipment for Hawaii

  • Is your facility looking for Personal Protection Equipment?
  • Do you want to help by sewing masks, such as the Olson mask, or creating other materials for local agencies here in Hawai‘i? 

Kōkua Mau will be coordinating with our movement and our members to reach out to crafting communities, sewing circles, and any volunteers who want to support our medical community right here in our islands. If you would like to help, like sew masks, contact us and we can help connect you with local agencies (or you can go onto getusppe.org.) Details, videos and patterns on our webpage

Inspirational Thoughts

In these trying times we all need some perspective and some insightful reflection. In no particular order or priority we will list here website or blogs that hopefully will inspirational to you.

The Pause Newsletter comes highly recommended by Kōkua Mau’s own Clarence Liu: “It is deeply spiritual without the trappings of religious language, poetic, and consoling. In short, a gem.” The Pause is our Saturday morning newsletter, a gathering of threads from the far-flung, ongoing conversation that is The On Being Project.

Kōkua Mau’s own Clarence Liu shared a resource with us: Spiritual Practices for the Coronavirus Pandemic. Spiritual Practice website aims to disarm fear and uncertainty, use while taking preventative measures, handle social distancing and quarantine, be present with illness, and sustain hope.

That Discomfort You’re Feeling Is Grief, by Scott Berinato
March 23, 2020, Harvard Business review. They turned to David Kessler, an expert on grief, for ideas on how to do that.

Most of you know Atul Gawande for his work on advancing conversations on end-of-life goals of care – author of Being Mortal and The Checklist Manifesto. His article from 3/21 in the New Yorker: Keeping the Coronavirus from Infecting Health-Care Workers.

Ira Byock‘s piece: “This Pandemic Is Personal”

The Role of Palliative Care in a COVID-19 Pandemic by Jennifer Ballentine, Shiley, CSU. Link

Navigating COVID-19 as a Hospice and Palliative Care Professional by
Joe Rotella, Chief Medical Officer, AAHPM Link

Zoom tips

Most of the time zoom works like a charm, flawlessly. If this is the case for you may stop reading here.

We have a dedicated website: zoom made easy

There are a million things that can go wrong. If you are among the unlucky ones, here are some videos that help.

Join a Zoom Meeting

To join a zoom meeting, please watch both of the videos first. Most of the problems we had were people not being able to hear or other issues related to the set up in their device they are using to participate.

Joining a Zoom Call for the First Time; Fun and Easy Online Connection (8 minutes): https://youtu.be/9isp3qPeQ0E

Joining & Configuring Audio & Video (2 minutes) (this looks different in an iPad, there it is on top of the screen): https://youtu.be/-s76QHshQnY

Joining zoom meetings with a mobile device

If you want to join a zoom meeting on a mobile device, you must download the app: ‘Zoom cloud meetings‘ from the app store (iPad/iPhone) or your google play store. This is not optional, but a zoom per-requisit.  Please watch the video and install the app first, so you can join any meeting with zoom.

How to install Zoom and join Meeting on Mobile (iOS) Device!
https://youtu.be/ljbD3hnqyXU

How to install Zoom on Android: https://youtu.be/HRT305gWn-0

Basic Zoom accounts are free. A free account is more than enough for most people, especially if you only participate in zoom meetings. If you decide not to get a free zoom account keep in mind: There are option how to view the participants during a meeting (speaker and gallery view) that are not available for you if you don’t have a zoom account (even if others in the meeting may try to help you view that, since they have a free account).

Note: it is recommended that all co-host have a free basic zoom account, since some features are only available if you have an account.

GREAT VIDEO FOR HOSTS/ORGANIZERS

This is the best (zoom made) 10-minute video that spells it out very well.  It assumes you are familiar with zoom already. If not consult the list above. Every host and co-host should watch this as a zoom 101 pre-requisit.

Meeting Controls (zoom): https://youtu.be/ygZ96J_z4AY

Note: These links are being provided as a convenience and for informational purposes only; they do not constitute an endorsement or an approval by the Kōkua Mau of any of the products, services or opinions of the corporation, organization or individual. Kōkua Mau bears no responsibility for the accuracy, legality or content of the external site or for that of subsequent links. Contact the external site for answers to questions regarding its content.