For Immediate Release
NEWS RELEASE
Contact: Joan
Civile
U.S. Living Will Registry
Phone: (908) 654-1441 Fax: (908) 654-1919
joan@uslivingwillregistry.com
U.S. Living Will Registry Provides
Advance Directive Solution to Sentara Health care
Westfield, New Jersey – (September 15, 2003) - The
U.S. Living Will Registry today announced its agreement with Sentara Health care
to provide management of advance directives to Sentara’s entire system.
The arrangement will allow all of Sentara’s health related facilities to
retrieve and share advance directives 24 hours a day via the Internet.
Commonly known as living wills or health care proxies, advance directives
allow people to maintain control over decisions about their care if they are
incapacitated. Federal and state
regulations place the burden of managing these documents on health care
providers, and keeping track of them efficiently has been an ongoing problem for
providers. The U.S. Living Will
Registry electronically stores advance directives, organ donor and emergency
contact information, eliminating the need for on-site storage and management by
hospitals and health care providers.
The system allows any of Sentara’s
hospitals, nursing homes, physician’s offices and other care-giving sites to
access documents instantly through a secure connection between the Registry and
Sentara’s Intranet system. The
Registry’s computer design allows documents registered through one facility to
be accessed by all of the other facilities in the system.
Sentara began investigating the concept of an advance
directive registry system two years ago.
“After considering the upfront financial investment needed to develop our own
registry, we decided it was more cost effective to use the U.S. Living Will
Registry.
We believe the Registry offers the best and most affordable system
available,” said David A. Cochran of Sentara’s Chaplaincy Services.
“We were happy to help Sentara find a way to manage its advance
directives,” said Dr. Joseph T. Barmakian, founder of the Registry.
“Because our service is flexible enough to handle a single doctor’s
office or a national health care organization, we were able to provide a
solution to fit Sentara’s specific needs,” he continued.
Sentara Health care, a premier not-for-profit health care
provider in southeastern
Virginia
and northeastern
North Carolina, is comprised of 6 acute care hospitals, an extended recovery
hospital, 2 outpatient care campuses, 7 nursing centers, 3 assisted living
centers, and 25 primary care practices.
Sentara was ranked the number one integrated health care network in the
United States
in 2001 by Modern Health care magazine, and is the only health care system in
the nation to be named in the top 10 for six consecutive years. For more
information on Sentara Health care, visit
www.sentara.com.
The U.S. Living Will Registry is the leading
provider of advance directive and organ donor registry services in the country.
Information about the Registry’s services can be obtained at
www.uslivingwillregistry.com.
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