Speakers Bureau

If you are a member of the media and would like to learn more about National POLST, please contact the National POLST Office at (202) 780-8532 or [email]admin@polst.org[/email] . You may also reach out to our experts listed below; contact information is located below their biography.

Patricia A. Bomba, MD, MACP, FRCP

Dr. Bomba is Vice President and Medical Director, Geriatrics for Excellus BlueCross BlueShield. She served on the Institute of Medicine’s Committee that produced Dying in America: Improving Quality and Honoring Individual Preferences Near the End of Life and is a member of the National Academy of Medicine Roundtable on Quality Care for People with Serious Illness. She chairs the MOLST Statewide Implementation Team and the National Healthcare Decisions Day New York State Coalition and is the NYeMOLST Program Director.  She is a founding member, New York’s representative to the National POLST Plenary Assembly. She serves on the Medical Society of the State of New York Ethics Committee and NCQA Geriatric Measurement Advisory Panel; she was a member of the American Board of Internal Medicine Primary Palliative Care Committee and the National Quality Forum’s “Framework and Preferred Practices for a Palliative and Hospice Care Quality.”

Contact: Jim Redmond, VP Corporate Communications; (585) 238-4579; [email]Jim.Redmond@excellus.com[/email]

Alvin “Woody” H. Moss, MD, FACP, FAAHPM

Alvin Moss is a Professor of Medicine at the West Virginia University School of Medicine and a clinician, teacher, and researcher in nephrology and palliative medicine. He is the Director of the West Virginia University Center for Health Ethics and Law and the Executive Director of the West Virginia Center for End-of-Life Care which oversees the West Virginia Physician Orders for Scope of Treatment (POST) program and the West Virginia e-Directive Registry. He led the Renal Physicians Association and American Society of Nephrology workgroup that developed the clinical practice guideline, Shared Decision-Making in the Appropriate Initiation of and Withdrawal from Dialysis. He chairs the Coalition for the Supportive Care of Kidney Patients which is a national collaborative engaging health care professionals, payers, patients, and their families to ensure the consistent provision of individualized, patient- centered supportive care—palliative care—to those withadvanced kidney disease. He is a graduate of Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

Contact: (304) 293-7618; [email]amoss@hsc.wvu.edu[/email]

Susan Hickman, PhD

Susan Hickman is a professor in the Indiana University School of Nursing and a Co-Director of the RESPECT (Research in Palliative and End-of-Life Communication and Training) Signature Center at IUPUI. She is the Executive Director of the Indiana Patient Preferences Coalition, the group responsible for developing and promoting the new Indiana POST Program. She has been providing education and conducting research on the POLST model for over 15 years. Current research includes implementation of the POLST as part of a CMS-funded initiative to reduce potentially avoidable hospitalizations of long-stay nursing facility residents and an NIH-funded study of the quality of POLST decisions. Susan is Indiana’s representative to the National POLST Plenary Assembly.

Contact: [email]hickman@iu.edu[/email]

Susan E. Nelson, MD, FACP, FAAHPM

Susan Nelson serves as medical director of Post-Acute Care, Ochsner Health Network and Chair, Palliative Medicine, Ochsner Health System. She currently chairs the Louisiana Physician Orders for Scope of Treatment (LaPOST) Coalition, an initiative of the Louisiana Health Care Quality Forum., and is a past board member of that organization. She is a fellow of the American College of Physicians and the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine as well as an advocate for senior health. Dr. Nelson assisted in the development of the Catholic Health Association’s “End-of-Life Guides”, as well as the “Pathways to Convergence” document which explores both diverging and converging views of Catholics about advance care planning, palliative care, and health care decisions within the Catholic Church and in the public square. She worked with the Louisiana State Medical Society Council on Public Health and is a member of the Leadership Council, National POLST (Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment). She is a faculty member for Respecting Choices.

Contact: Monique Tyler; (225) 300-4825; [email]mtyler@lhcqf.org[/email]

Judy Thomas, JD

Judy Thomas is Chief Executive Officer of the Coalition for Compassionate Care of California (CCCC), a partnership of healthcare providers, non-profit organizations and associations, state agencies and individuals working to ensure all seriously-ill people receive quality, compassionate care. Under Judy’s leadership, CCCC designed a strong model for Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST) implementation in California by forming coalitions comprised of stakeholders who represent a diverse array of interests. California’s POLST curriculum and training model is used by POLST educators throughout the country. Judy has served as President of the National POLST Leadership Council, serves on the Donate Life California advisory board, and was named a Practice Change Leader by the John A. Hartford Foundation. She is an expert sought-out by local and national audiences interested in discussing palliative care, advance care planning and coalition building to improve care for everyone.

Contact: (916) 489-2222; [email]info@capolst.org[/email]

Amy Vandenbroucke, JD

Amy Vandenbroucke has served as the Executive Director of National POLST since 2013. Prior to joining the National POLST, Amy served as Legal Counsel at Oregon Health & Science University where she advised on a variety of issues, including medical ethics, informed consent, guardianship and health care generally. Prior to graduating from the DePaul University College of Law in Chicago, she worked for the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services Office for Civil Rights, the American Osteopathic Association, and the University of Chicago. Amy is a 2015 Practice Change Leader for Aging and Health, a yearlong program jointly supported by the Atlantic Philanthropies and the John A. Hartford Foundation.  She is also a Hartford Change AGEnt through the Hartford Change AGEnts Initiative.

Contact: (202) 780-8352; [email]admin@polst.org[/email]