For Immediate Release
NEWS RELEASE
Contact: Barbara Erb
U.S. Living Will Registry
Phone: (908) 654-1441/Fax: (908) 654-1919
barb@uslivingwillregistry.com
The U.S. Living Will Registry Partners with Englewood Hospital and Medical
Center To Offer Free Registration Of Advance Directives
Partnership will ensure a channel of communication is in place for seriously
ill patients
Westfield, New Jersey -- (May 10, 2004) -- The U.S. Living Will Registry
today announced its agreement with Catholic Health care Partners to provide
advance directive management services to the Cincinnati based health system. The
arrangement will allow all of Catholic Health care Partners’ hospitals and
associated facilities to manage and share advance directives easily and quickly.
By storing advance directives in the Registry’s central database, all facilities
in the five state health system can gain access to documents securely via a
connection between Catholic Health care Partners intranet and the Registry.
Commonly known as living wills or health care proxies, advance directives
allow patients to maintain control over health care decisions when they are
incapacitated. Federal and state regulations place the burden of managing these
documents on health care providers, but storing, retrieving and sharing
documents among multiple hospitals in a health system has been problematic. The
U.S. Living Will Registry electronically stores advance directives, organ donor
and emergency contact information, and makes them available to health care
providers via secure Internet site or an automated telephone/facsimile system.
This eliminates the need for on-site storage by hospitals, and allows any of
Catholic Health care Partners’ hospitals or other affiliated health care
providers instant access to these important documents. The Registry’s computer
design allows documents registered through one facility to be accessed by all
other facilities in a health system.
By utilizing the Registry’s system, Catholic Health care Partners will be
able to efficiently manage advance directives across five states and 30
hospitals, while at the same time offering a valuable service to the communities
it serves. Michael D. Connelly, president & CEO, Catholic Health care Partners,
noted “our current strategic plan calls us to enhance our capacity to provide
quality, compassionate palliative care to patients and residents who have
entered the dying process. Timely access to advance directives and durable
powers of attorney for health care created by patients and residents is an
important step that ensures that we can provide the level and scope of health
care services they desire. We look to the U.S. Living Will Registry as an
important means of ensuring such timely access to each of our facilities.”
“Our system is ideally suited to help Catholic Health care Partners manage
these important documents, and to quickly and easily share them among their many
hospitals in different states,” said Dr. Joseph T. Barmakian, who founded the
Registry in 1996. “The Registry provides comprehensive management of advance
directives, helps hospitals comply with government regulations, while at the
same time providing a valuable service to the community,” continued Barmakian.
Catholic Health care Partners is one of the largest not-for-profit health
systems in the country, serving Indiana , Kentucky , Ohio , Pennsylvania and
Tennessee . The system includes 29 hospitals, 14 long term care facilities, 11
hospices and 10 home health agencies. For more information, visit
www.health-partners.org.
The U.S. Living Will Registry is the leading provider of advance directive
management services in the country. The Registry provides services to health
systems, individual hospitals and health organizations, and is the preferred
supplier of on-line living will preservation services to the New Jersey Hospital
Association. For more information, visit
www.uslivingwillregistry.com.
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