Martha's Vineyard & Nantucket Community Partners
Martha's Vineyard Partners
Healthy Aging Martha's Vineyard
Healthy Aging Martha's Vineyard (formerly the Healthy Aging Task Force) is a planning and advocacy coalition of over 70 leaders representing 37 nonprofit and municipal organizations serving Martha’s Vineyard elders and their families. The mission of Healthy Aging Martha's Vineyard (HAMV) is to create an aging-friendly Island meeting the needs of the rapidly growing 65+ population and those who care for them. Through a community-wide planning process, HAMV works to engage diverse stakeholders, foster collaborative programs, and fill service gaps.
As an Honoring Choices Partner, HAMV co-hosted a joint workshop which provided its coalition members with training and tools as Health Care Planning Ambassadors, and as facilitators to start end of life planning conversations using The Conversation Project's tools. Honoring Choices will continue to work with HAMV as it convenes major stakeholders to improve access to health care planning and ensure safe transitions for high quality equitable care throughout the Vineyard.
Hospice & Palliative Care of Martha's Vineyard
| Chantale Patterson, RN, BSN, OCN, CHPN |
| Clinical Director |
| 508-693-0189 |
“For 42 years, Hospice and Palliative Care of Martha’s Vineyard (HPCMV) has helped to educate, guide, and support our island community at end-of-life, and to comfort their loved ones", says Chantale Patterson, RN, BSN, OCN,CHPN, Clinical Director. "We are driven by our core values-Care, Compassions and Community- and continually strive to meet the health care needs of our community. At HPCMV, we recognize that equal access to care planning information is essential, including early conversations about health care options available at every stage of life."
By partnering with Honoring Choices Massachusetts (HCM), HPCMV trained staff and volunteers will employ the HCM structured approach to health care planning to have conversations with members in the Martha's Vineyard community and help individuals create an individualized health care plan. "Health care planning is not just for the aging but for everyone over the age of 18, says Ms. Patterson. "With the help of Honoring Choices Massachusetts, we hope to educate, empower, and inform our community to take control of their healthcare decisions.”
Nantucket Partners
Palliative & Supportive Care of Nantucket
Debbie Dolan, RN,BSN,MSN,CRNP,ACHPN
Palliative & Supportive Care Manager, PASCON
Mass General Brigham/Nantucket Cottage Hospital
508 825-8325
Palliative & Supportive Care of Nantucket is a specialized health care program dedicated to providing excellent physical, psychological, social, and spiritual care for persons with life-threatening illness and their families. Services are provided through an interdisciplinary team of professionals and volunteers with the goal of improving the quality of life for patients with serious illness and their family/caregivers.
Debbie Dolan, Program Manager and Certified Registered Nurse Practitioner explains: “One of my roles regarding the care of those with serious illness, is to discuss with our patients and their family members/caregivers, what is most important to them, what are their medical goals and what do they want to communicate to the whole team about these important matters so that we can then align the care that is needed and desired.” This involves having Serious Illness Conversations to identify these goals and communicate them to the care team as well as to assist in the completion of important documents such as the Massachusetts Health Care Proxy and the MOLST form (Massachusetts Medical Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment).