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 Dr.
Lynn is a geriatrician and is the Director of The Center
to Improve Care of the Dying at RAND. The Center is a multi-disciplinary
center for research and education aimed at improving the
care of seriously ill persons. The Center's faculty has
recently authored three books. Improving Care at the
End of Life: A Sourcebook for Managers and Clinicians, The
Handbook for Mortals: Guidance for People Facing Serious
Illness (Oxford University Press and www.medicaring.org),
and Promises to Keep, which provides stories of successful
provider organizations, and guidance for becoming involved
in upcoming debates over public policy. Dr. Lynn was Project
Director of the President's Commission for the Study of
Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral
Research and principal writer of that Commission's book,
Deciding to Forego Life-Sustaining Treatment. Dr.
Lynn was Co-Director of SUPPORT, the Study to Understand
Prognoses and Preferences for Outcomes and Risks of Treatments.
SUPPORT studied the course of illness and treatment for
ten thousand seriously ill hospitalized persons and implemented
an intervention to improve decision-making and produced
more than 100 peer-reviewed journal articles. Dr. Lynn is
a former medical director of The Washington Home and Hospice
of Washington. She was elected to the Institute of Medicine
in 1996. She also served as Chair for two Breakthrough Collaboratives
to Improve End-of-Life Care, in conjunction with the Institute
for Healthcare Improvement. These collaboratives supported
a diverse set of almost one hundred health care provider
institutions, most of which accomplished rapid quality improvement
in their own settings. She has written book chapters in
many geriatrics textbooks as well as articles in lay and
professional journals. She speaks frequently to groups concerning
how to encourage meaningful lives for persons with severe
illness and how to measure quality of end-of-life services.
The print and broadcast media often request Dr. Lynn's comments
on issues such as Medicare reform proposals, care at the
end of life, and physician-assisted suicide. In addition,
Dr. Lynn is president of the public interest organization,
Americans for Better Care of the Dying (ABCD). ABCD is a
non-profit organization that promotes public understanding
and coalitions across organizations to improve end of life
care.
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