The Evolution of the Empowered Endings Collective
Dr. Bob and Elizabeth Uslander met in 2017 and quickly discovered their shared passion for filling the glaring gaps in our insurance-based models of Palliative and Hospice Care. When they began working together in Bob’s private medical practice, they initially tried to replicate the traditional healthcare model while adding to it by offering the elements they believed were missing. This approach was highly resource-intensive and proved impossible to sustain as a small business.
They refined their model of care by identifying the most impactful gaps in traditional medical care for patients facing complex and terminal illnesses and established the Empowered Endings Model of Care to ensure that patients, loved ones, and collaborating providers had the support, knowledge, and tools needed to create an Empowered End of Life Experience with these seven (7) pillars of care:
1) Personal doctor-patient relationships: an engaged physician offering intensive, personalized, trauma-preventative, culturally-competent care and counsel;
2) Guidance and companionship with doulas: emotional, spiritual, and grief support from end of life, grief and dementia doulas throughout the final chapters and beyond;
3) Personalized 24/7 support for families: a team of experts answering the pressing questions that families have as they navigating the journey alongside their loved ones;
4) Collaboration with care partners: communication with healthcare professionals, care planners and managers, holistic practitioners, and doulas to ensure comprehensive care;
5) Enhancing quality-of-life with therapies: access to traditional, alternative and holistic therapies variably available in the insurance-based model;
6) Specialized end-of-life option support: unique expertise educating, advocating and providing care for legal end of life options, including Medical Aid in Dying and Voluntary Stopping Eating and Drinking;
7) Robust, proactive end-of-life planning: ensuring that those who wish to design a gentle and dignified death have the information, resources, and support to do so.
Because the traditional model of healthcare relies on insurance billing, these vital elements of care are often unavailable for community members seeking palliative and end of life support. This model of care, now proven after nearly a decade of success supporting hundreds of patients and families throughout Southern California and beyond, led Dr. Bob and Elizabeth to establish educational, charitable and practical resources to ensure an Empowered End of Life Experience is the rule, not the exception.
The Empowered Endings Medical Group (EEMG) model of care ensures that those who wish to have an Empowered End of Life Experience have access to the resources, care, counseling, and support that make it possible.
The Empowered Endings Institute (EEI) offers education and resources for community members, healthcare providers, and non-clinical end-of-life practitioners nation-wide, who are interested in optimizing their understanding of and ability to serve and support their patients and clients.
The Empowered Endings Foundation (EEF) was founded to ensure that every person who seeks to empower their end-of-life journey has access to the necessary resources and support not currently available through traditional healthcare’s insurance-based model. It is vitally important that limited financial resources never be an obstacle to people receiving the care and information they need.
The Empowered Endings Management Services Organization (EEMSO) is the umbrella organization that supports all aspects of the Empowered Endings Collective, including training doctors and doulas in other communities who wish to replicate the EEMG model of care.
