The Role of NHPCA

Professional Education—sponsoring workshops, new curriculums, and the annual "Living a Good Life...at the End of Life" Conference

Community Engagement—through a speakers bureau and media work to increase awareness of issues related to the end of life and chronic illness, and as sponsor of the Nebraska Hospice-Veteran Partnership and the Nebraska Pain Initiative. The Association also serves as the state's liaison to the National Healthcare Decisions Day Initiative and the American Pain Foundation's Action Network

Advocacy—as a monitor of legislation related to the end of life, pain and chronic illness

Research—on hospice usage, through the NHPCA tri-annual statewide End-of-Life Survey, and through a disabilities palliative care pilot project called Ticket to Work Palliative Care

Quality Improvement—as a founding member of the Quality Partners initiative of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization and as a primary provider of regulatory and billing information to Nebraska's hospices

Through these and other efforts, NHPCA has helped hospice admissions in Nebraska grow by more than 80 percent in the last nine years, has helped the advance directives completion rate in Nebraska grow by 23 percent since 2003, and has helped put Nebraska on the map as a national leader in statewide end-of-life improvement efforts.