Summary

Our vision is that all Americans with advanced illness, especially the sickest and most vulnerable, will receive comprehensive, high-quality care that is consistent with their goals and values and honors their dignity.

Challenge and Opportunity
For the millions of Americans with advanced illness, the availability of appropriate care varies tremendously. To define the term, advanced illness occurs when one or more conditions become serious enough that general health and functioning decline, treatment begins to lose its effect, and quality of life increasingly becomes the focus of care — a process that continues to the end of life. Inadequately treated physical and emotional distress, fragmented care systems, poor communication among doctors, patients, and families, and enormous strains on caregiver and support systems frequently characterize care for people with advanced illness. In addition, studies indicate that these patients do not receive appropriate quality care consistent with their goals and values. Our care delivery system often prevents patients and families from making informed health decisions that are in their best interests. The end result of this fragmented, confusing, and disorienting approach is a system that fails everyone.

Clearly, something is wrong. Recent research shows that providing comprehensive, patient-centered care leads to better quality, greater patient satisfaction, and lower costs. Care for these patients is also one of the primary reasons for the unsustainable growth in health care costs. Yet these high costs are not leading to better outcomes and higher quality — in fact, quite the contrary.

Many attempts to reform advanced illness care have been undertaken in the past, but sustainable models that build on existing systemic competencies have not emerged. C-TAC will build on past efforts and current best practices to help create a system within the reach of every American that provides the right care at the right time, that empowers patients, and in turn, helps control costs.

Our Approach
The C-TAC mission is to transform advanced illness care by empowering consumers, changing the health care delivery system, improving public and private policies, and enhancing provider capacity. We are assembling a diverse group of stakeholders to work together to:

• Identify, design and promote best-practice delivery models that ensure high-quality, coordinated care across all settings.
• Develop and disseminate innovative models of inter-professional advanced care education aimed at improving quality, shared decision making, and clinical care by cultivating respect, compassion and responsiveness in care delivery.
• Develop and advocate for federal and state legislative, regulatory, judicial and administrative initiatives, as well as private policies, to improve care for those with advanced illness.
• Undertake a nationwide campaign of public education and engagement to help patients and their families make more informed decisions and to call for delivery system and policy change.

As Baby Boomers age, the number of people struggling with serious advanced illness will expand rapidly; we need action. Now is the time for stakeholders to take the initiative to develop and implement sustainable models of care delivery for the sickest and most vulnerable among us.

C-TAC is a large, active coalition of patient and consumer groups, care providers, private sector stakeholders, faith-based organizations, health care payers and others. We are nonprofit and nonpartisan. For more information and to become involved, please e-mail us at: