Following a study that found serious gaps in advance care planning for decisions about serious illness, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation/U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Physician Faculty Scholar Rebecca L. Sudore, MD, has launched an online resource to help patients prepare to make complex medical decisions. Sudore, who led the study, saw a need for an easy-to-use tool , beyond an advance directive form, that could help prepare patients to identify what is important to them in life, communicate their wishes with others, and make informed medical decisions.

PrepareForYourCare.org is a free, easy-to-use online resource that guides patients through all the steps of advance care planning, and incorporates content directly from Sudore’s study. It is written at a fifth-grade reading level, includes voice-overs of all text and large fonts for the visually impaired and closed captioning for the hearing impaired.

More importantly, PREPARE shows people, through videos and a step-by-step process, how to have the conversation and make informed medical decisions.

Around the country, print, broadcast and online media outlets are covering the groundbreaking work of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) leaders, scholars, fellows and grantees. Some recent examples:

As part of its 25th anniversary celebration, Nurse.com recognized RWJF Senior Adviser for Nursing Susan B. Hassmiller, RN, PhD, FAAN, as a “pillar” of the New York/New Jersey nursing community. Hassmiller serves as director of the Future of Nursing: Campaign for Action. Nurse.com also honored Beverly L. Malone, RN, PhD, FAAN, a member of the RWJF Nurse Faculty Scholars National Advisory Committee and CEO of the National League for Nursing––one of the organizations leading RWJF’s Academic Progression in Nursing (APIN) program.

The New York Times reports on a new analysis by the RAND Corporation, co-authored by Arthur Kellermann, MD, MPH, FACEP, an alumnus of the RWJF Clinical Scholars program and the RWJF Health Policy Fellows program. The analysis finds that “the conversion to electronic health records has failed so far to produce the hoped-for savings in health care costs and has had mixed results, at best, in improving efficiency and patient care.” The article also quotes RWJF Investigator Award in Health Policy Research recipient David Blumenthal, MD, MPP. Read a post Kellermann wrote for the RWJF Human Capital Blog about health care spending.

Investigator Award recipient and RWJF Generalist Physician Faculty Scholar program alumnus Peter Ubel, MD, wrote an article for Forbes about a study he co-authored with RWJF Scholars in Health Policy Research alumnus Brendan Nyhan, PhD, and Jason Reifler, PhD, that finds the “death panel” myth––that the government would decide who was “worthy of health care” under the Affordable Care Act––has persisted, and may even grow with time. The Washington Post Wonk Blog also reported on the study. Read a post Ubel wrote for the RWJF Human Capital Blog.