Our Mission and Vision
Empowering Arizonans to Have their Wishes Honored
The Thoughtful Life Conversations mission is to empower Arizonans to make their life wishes and healthcare directives known so that their final days are spent exactly the way they were meant to be spent—according to their wishes. The second priority is to equip healthcare teams with the resources to honor these decisions.
Each of us is responsible for opening the door to having Thoughtful Life Conversations that foster this kind of control over our medical care should we not be able to voice our preferences ourselves at the time.
TLC’s vision is for Arizonans to have Thoughtful Life Conversations that result in healthcare wishes and goals being honored by loved ones and medical professionals. In turn, Arizonans receive care that aligns with their values and personal preferences toward the end of their lives.
Why We Started Thoughtful Life Conversations
Thoughtful Life Conversations (TLC), a program of the Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association, is an affiliation of healthcare leaders, healthcare providers and community representatives with a shared commitment and a sense of accountability to support you in planning your advanced care needs.
Death isn’t something that happens to certain people. It comes to all of us. Why not prepare now?
The idea of this collaborative program is to transform serious illness care for Arizonans by:
- Promoting patient choice, values and autonomy through advance care planning
- Advancing provider competencies for honest conversations and care
- Strengthening public policies and payment systems to better serve those with advanced illness
Arizona Coalition to Transform Serious Illness Care
The goal of the Arizona Coalition to Transform Serious Illness Care is to improve care for those with serious illness. The coalition consists of more than 40 key organizations and leaders from across the state, who are partnering with national experts, the Coalition to Transform Advanced Care (C-TAC) and Discern Health, part of Real Chemistry, to identify focused areas for improvement. Arizona ranks 33rd in the nation for advanced illness care according to C-TACs Advanced Care Transformation Index. The Index contains 37 measures across five domains including: care, caregivers, communications, community and cost. While many healthcare organizations have developed programs, they tend to work within their own scope and not across the state.
Grant Partners
The Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association’s (AzHHA’s) Thoughtful Life Conversations initiative is a proud recipient of grants from The David and Lura Lovell Foundation and the Coalition to Transform Advance Care (C-TAC).
The David and Lura Lovell Foundation
The David and Lura Lovell Foundation funded many organizations to form the statewide End of Life Care Partnership.
The mission is to encourage broad community dialogue; recognize and support diverse communities through culturally relevant initiatives; advance geriatric, hospice and palliative care initiatives through education and workforce development; create a call to action to influence public policy and reimbursement practices; encourage collaboration to ensure best quality care; provide a neutral forum for information exchange in the face of competing priorities/entities; and champion both immediate and long-range initiatives to significantly improve end of life care.
Coalition to Transform Advance Care (C-TAC)
The Coalition to Transform Advanced Care (C-TAC) is an alliance of more than 140 national healthcare stakeholders dedicated to ensuring all Americans with advanced illness, especially the sickest and most vulnerable, receive comprehensive, high-quality, person-centered care that is consistent with their goals and values and honors their dignity.
In collaboration with Arizona Coalition to Transform Serious Illness Care, C-TAC is leading a national initiative, a moon shot goal to ensure that 12 million people living with serious illness have a high-quality life by 2030. They are proud to work along the Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association and the Arizona End of Life Care Partnership in support of this work. The collaborative work in Arizona will measure advance care quality and implement needed changes. This will create a roadmap for improvement that can then be duplicated in every state. Its goal is to ensure that people with advanced illness receive the care they want, when and where they want it.
Collaborative Partners
If you would like to join the efforts of the Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association's Thoughtful Life Conversations initiative, please send us an email at [email protected].