Sojourns Award recognizes leadership in palliative care
SALT LAKE CITY - The Regence Foundation is honoring Dr. Sarah J. Goodlin with a Sojourns Award for leadership and innovation in advancing palliative care in Utah. The award includes a $50,000 grant to support continued advancements in palliative care. Dr. Goodlin plans to designate the award to Patient-Centered Education and Research Foundation, a nonprofit organization she helped found. The major focus of the organization is the Palliative Care-Heart Failure Education and Research Trials (PC-HEART) collaborative, an effort to improve communication and quality of life for persons with advanced heart failure and their families.
Palliative care is a medical specialty that brings relief and comfort to seriously ill patients and their families. The award is part of The Regence Foundation’s Sojourns® program to expand access to hospital and community based palliative care services.
“Dr. Goodlin has been a strong advocate for patients, especially those with advanced heart failure in need of palliative care,” said Peggy Maguire, Regence Foundation board chair. “When she started there was very little known about palliative care best practices for heart failure patients. Since then, she has truly led the charge to ensure patients have access the care and information they need.”
Nationally, Dr. Goodlin’s accomplishments include leading an initiative funded by the Agency for Health Research and Quality and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to improve palliative care for patients with heart failure. She also helped develop new end-of-life guidelines for the Heart Failure Society of America. Locally, Dr. Goodlin has been instrumental in integrating palliative care into heart failure care at several Utah hospitals and teaching Utah hospices about care of patients with heart failure.
For her contributions to research and education over the past 20 years, Dr. Goodlin has been recognized by the American Heart Association, and elected as a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology and the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine.
Dr. Goodlin will be honored for her accomplishments at a Sojourns Award ceremony in Portland, Oregon on November 30. To attend or learn more, visit www.regencefoundation.org.
About The Regence Foundation
The Regence Foundation is the corporate foundation of Regence, the largest health insurer in the Northwest/Intermountain region and a nonprofit independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. A 501(c)3 grantmaking organization, the Foundation partners with organizations driving significant change in health care delivery and accessibility in Idaho, Oregon, Utah and Washington. Through its Sojourns program, the Foundation also supports organizations advancing quality palliative and end-of-life care. For more information visit www.RegenceFoundation.org or www.twitter.com/RegenceGives.