MINNEAPOLIS, Sept. 16 /PRNewswire/ -- Medical Alley, the Minnesota health care trade association, announced that Larry A. Kuusisto, Ph.D., has joined its Alley Institute as Director of the Minnesota Palliative Care Partnership. The Partnership is an alliance of four leading health care organizations: Allina, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota, Fairview Health Services, and HealthPartners.
Dr. Kuusisto will work with the Partnership to examine and advocate for the integration of palliative care services, by both improving current practices and incorporating palliative care into new settings. Palliative care is medical care provided by an interdisciplinary team focused on the relief of suffering, and supports the best possible quality of life for patients facing serious life-threatening illness, and for their families. Dr. Kuusisto has been an educator and an advocate for complementary health care practices for twenty years. He is a postdoctoral Fellow of the Minnesota Consortium for Complementary and Alternative Medicine Clinical Research at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Kuusisto has been a member of the Medical Alley Board of Directors since 2001.
Alley Institute is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization under the Medical Alley trade association umbrella that focuses on grant-funded projects, workforce and scholarship efforts. Don Gerhardt, CEO of Medical Alley states, "Dr. Kuusisto is a strong new addition to the Partnership team. His experience in the health care system is a great fit with the Partnership as they work toward impacting this highly important and growing sector of our health care system." The Partnership is co-chaired by MaryAnn Stump, R.N., Vice President, Strategic Innovations, Blue Cross Blue Shield, and Mark Leenay, M.D., Medical Director of Transitions and Life Choices, Palliative Care, and Hospice Services, Fairview Health Services. Dr. Leenay states, "Palliative care is patient and family-centered care. It is both a philosophy of care and an organized system for delivering care. The strength of the Partnership allows us to examine new integrative approaches, and we welcome the sustained efforts of Dr. Kuusisto to demonstrate Minnesota's leadership." Dr. Kuusisto replaces Patricia Drury, who served as the Director of the Partnership through July of this year.
In the fall of 2003, the Partnership published a white paper on palliative care and the case for including expanded palliative care in the menu of health benefits offered by employers. In February 2004, the Partnership changed its name from The Minnesota Partnership to Improve End of Life Care to its current name. This change recognized the growing importance the Partnership places on state of the art palliative care, not just at the end of life, but throughout the course of a serious chronic illness. The Partnership continues to work in several areas aimed at expanding access to excellent palliative care for any who may need it. In January 2004, Allina Health Services, a Minnesota-based self-insured employer who is a member of the Partnership, began offering a palliative care benefit to their own employees and their dependents. On June 1, 2004, a large Twin Cities hospital began offering a very similar employee benefit and it is the Partnership's goal that several other organizations will also offer a similar new benefit by the end of the year.
The Partnership, with the Minnesota Department of Health, previously obtained grant support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and launched the Minnesota Commission on End of Life Care. The Commission's work culminated in 2002 in the development of Five Guiding Principles for End of Life Care and a report offering numerous recommendations for specific community actions to improve end of life care. The Report can be viewed on the Partnership's website http://www.minnesotapartnership.org/ . In 2002, the Partnership chose Alley Institute, as its new partner and fiscal agent.
Founded in 1984, Medical Alley is a non-profit trade association comprised of well over 400 member organizations in the health care industry. The Association's mission is to serve as a collaborative forum that promotes an environment to enhance innovation in health care. Medical Alley membership includes medical technology manufacturers, health plans/insurers, pharmaceutical and bioscience companies, hospitals and clinics, academic/research institutions, and health care service and consulting companies of all sizes. For information about Medical Alley, visit http://www.medicalalley.org/ or call 952-542-3077.
Medical AlleyCONTACT: Liz Rammer of Medical Alley, +1-952-542-3077,lrammer@medicalalley.org
