End of Life Care - Workgroup 2000

In 1998 the Florida legislature created a panel to study end-of-life care. The final report which was completed August 1999, addressed recommendations in activities in three major areas- financial/regulatory, pain management and palliative care and advance directives. The 1999 Florida Legislature revised legislation (F.S. 765) on end-of-life care in response to some of the panel recommendations.

In 2000 the legislature followed up on this topic and created the End-of-Life Workgroup within the Department of Elder Affairs to advance work in this area (Section 16 of Chapter 295-2000). The Workgroup has three tasks:

• Examine reimbursement methodologies for end-of-life care.
• Identify end-of-life care standards that will enable all health providers along the health-care continuum to participate in an excellent system of delivering end-of-life care.
• Develop recommendations for incentives for appropriate end-of-life care.

The group met in August and will continue their work in October and November in order to complete a report by December 31.