Janice Lynch Schuster

Altarum Author:

Janice Lynch Schuster

Senior Writer, Altarum Institute

Janice Lynch Schuster has written extensively about improving care at the end of life. With Joanne Lynn, she coauthored two books on quality improvement for end of life care: Improving Care for the End of Life: A Sourcebook for Healthcare Managers; and Clinicians and A Common Sense Guide to Improving End of Life Care (both from Oxford). Currently a Senior Writer with Altarum Institute, Schuster’s past work includes serving as Director of Communications for Americans for Better Care of the Dying. Her work has been widely published and is often featured in The Washington Post. She has received several blue pencil awards for her work with the National Institute on Aging.

Lessons in Mortality: a New Catechism From the Pope

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Topics:

Aging

Disenfranchised as I am from the Roman Catholic Church in which I spent my childhood, I rarely find much about its workings to be instructive.

Quality Improvement Project Shows Major Improvements in Hospital Use for Medicare Beneficiaries in Communities

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Topics:

Aging

Care Transitions

Managed Care

Funded by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), and anchored by the Colorado Foundation for Medical Care (CFMC), this three-year project engaged 14 Quality Improvement Organizations (QIOs). QIOs are contractors to CMS and do specified work to improve the effectiveness, efficiency, economy, and quality of services delivered to Medicare beneficiaries; the 14 participant communities had the potential to touch the lives of nearly 800,000 Medicare beneficiaries.

Helping Patients Do the Work: Minimally Disruptive Medicine Tries to Right-size Health Care

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Topics:

Care Transitions

Chronic Disease

My 50-year old husband is an insulin-dependent diabetic who, over the years, has accumulated an array of chronic health conditions: his thyroid has failed, his cholesterol is high, and his cardiov

PBS Broadcast: Money and Medicine, Offers Opportunity for Insight

Monday, September 24, 2012

Topics:

Care Transitions

Community Health

Medicare

I was talking about the long-term effects my father's chemotherapy and radiation were taking on him; to be sure, the treatments had probably given him as yet uncounted years of life, but they

A Call to Action for Boomers as We Grow Old

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Topics:

Aging

Medicare

In nearly 50 years of serving America, Medicare has provided important medical services to millions of Americans. However, it is like a house that no longer fits our needs when we become old and frail. Only a fundamental redesign will make it reliably useful and affordable, and that redesign requires an angry constituency of elders and caregivers demanding community-level coordination of efficient, reliable supportive services. And it may be that Boomers will have to insist upon designing and building that new structure – soon!

Baby Boomers and the Demographic “Cannonball”

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Topics:

Aging

Your 80-year-old mother, who can’t recognize you due to severe Alzheimer’s dementia, has developed pneumonia after being hospitalized with a broken hip.

What Does It Matter to You: Patient Activation and Good Health Outcomes

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Topics:

Aging

Care Transitions

A few days into my 68-year old father’s hospitalization for sepsis, his doctors determined the strain of bacteria that plagued him: streptococcus.

Coalition Building for Care Transitions: Communities Work to Help Frail Elders

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Topics:

Care Transitions

“Care transitions” is the new buzzword in efforts to improve health, improve care and reduce costs.

The Rhinestone Cowboy Shows Us the Way

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Topics:

Aging

Chronic Disease

Glen Campbell’s decision to put a face on Alzheimer's by continuing to tour is a mark of real courage and heart. Not many celebrities let us come so close.

Progress Needed on End-of-Life Care

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Topics:

Aging

Chronic Disease

Insurance

Palliative care is the thorough assessment and treatment of symptoms, attention to the whole person and support for the entire journey we each will face at the end of life. We know palliative care helps. Let's make it standard care.

Cheap Political Victories and End of Life Care: A Better End for Anyone?

Monday, September 14, 2009

Topics:

Aging

Health Reform

Medicare

As if just talking about dying weren’t hard enough for most of us, now comes the disinformation campaign about end-of-life care discussions waged by opponents of health care reform.

Health Care Reform: Decent Care as a Key Value

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Topics:

Health Reform

HIV/AIDS & Sexual Health

“Decent care” offers a new approach to health care that seeks to acknowledge and apply universal human values of decency. Just as the concept of “decent work” sought to name and redefine the conditions of work in the industrial age, decent care seeks no less than to redefine and describe values that are essential to primary health worldwide.