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The virtual red carpet's rolled out -- we can't wait for all of you to join Dr. Atul Gawande and the whole Coalition gang at our Summit! We're so glad Atul can join us before he takes up his post at USAID.

Together, we'll be reflecting on what it means to prioritize equity and inclusion in serious illness care. How do patients and families define quality care and what matters most? Tune in for a Fireside Chat with Andrew Dreyfus and Michael Curry, we'll share new research findings, and then spend time reflecting with each other in breakout groups. It's going to be great!

A summit on serious illness care this week will explore new data on racial inequities in health care experience and communication, bringing together more than 200 people from across the Commonwealth to explore ways to improve care.

“We know there are persistent, well-documented disparities in health outcomes, and that has only become clearer over the past year amid COVID-19 and the national reckoning with systemic racism,” said Anna Gosline, executive director of the Massachusetts Coalition for Serious Illness Care.

Don't miss a Fireside Chat with Andrew Dreyfus from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts and Michael Curry from the Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers at our Summit.

Please join us for the 2021 Virtual Summit of the Massachusetts Coalition for Serious Illness Care. We'll be sharing our newest research findings, reporting out from major initiatives, and exploring more deeply what it means to shift to an equity-first approach in all our work. Register Now!

https://mcsicsummit.eventbrite.com

How might a health care proxy volunteer program look in Massachusetts? How can we best recruit and train volunteer health care proxies to ensure health care decisions made for each patient align with what matters most to them? What role can the Massachusetts Coalition for Serious Illness Care best play in developing such a program? These are the questions that Fiona Pat explored in 2020-2021 as part of her graduate Capstone Experience at Harvard Medical School’s Center for Bioethics.

The Coalition is delighted to have South Shore Health, Almgren Law Group, and CareNavigate join as a member organization because of the commitment is has shown to the present and future needs of the serious illness community.

C-TAC, the Coalition to Transform Advanced Care, recently held their 2021 Policy Forum, and our executive director Anna Gosline served as a guest speaker in one of the sessions, “How Federal and State Policies and Innovations are Reshaping the Advance Care Planning Landscape.”

Thank you to the almost 150 individuals who joined our Meet & Greet the POLST Form virtual session. It was great to see so many stakeholders represented and your thoughts and suggestions made for an excellent discussion. Watch the recording and learn more about the MOLST to POLST Advisory Group here.

The Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation (BCBSMA Foundation) is now recruiting applicants for the eleventh cohort of emerging leaders for the Massachusetts Institute for Community Health Leadership (MICHL) program that begins this fall.

In March 2021, Massachusetts officially began the important work of transitioning the current paper-based MOLST Program to the much improved POLST electronic form and statewide electronic registry. We want to hear your ideas on how to make this a successful transition. Please join us for our first session where we will introduce the POLST form and discuss the changes it introduces.