The Rita and Alex Hillman Foundation (Hillman) announced nine grants to support innovative, early-stage interventions that address the serious illness and end of life needs of marginalized populations.
The $500,000 in funding, part of a collaborative effort with The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations (AVDF), will advance nursing-driven initiatives that improve care for diverse populations and expand access to high-quality end of life services.
“Addressing disparities in palliative and end of life care demands bold and creative solutions,” said Ahrin Mishan, Executive Director of The Rita and Alex Hillman Foundation. “We believe that nursing – especially working in collaboration with other disciplines – is a powerful force for change, innovation, and social justice.”
Philanthropic Partnership Drives Progress
Through an innovative partnership established in 2021 between Hillman and AVDF, the Hillman Emergent Innovation: Serious Illness and End of Life (HSEI) program has significantly expanded the pipeline of pilot interventions that seek to promote more equitable care for the seriously ill. As a result of the program’s past success, AVDF recently awarded Hillman a $250,000 grant to continue the partnership for the 2025 HSEI award cycle.
“We are proud of our continued collaboration with The Rita and Alex Hillman Foundation,” said Michael Murray, AVDF President. “We believe it is particularly important that this funding gives early-stage projects a rare opportunity to create an evidence base supporting dignified and culturally competent care for people that our healthcare system too often overlooks.”
HSEI Grantees Expand Access to Equitable Care
This year’s grants demonstrate a commitment to the design, development, and delivery of better and more equitable care. The 2024 HSEI grant recipients are:
Promoting Peer-to-Peer End of Life Care for Aging Incarcerated People
– The prison population is aging and the need for compassionate end-of-life care is great. This innovative project trains incarcerated individuals to provide care and companionship to their aging and dying peers and aims to share this model across state prisons in California and elsewhere.
– Principal Investigator: Lisa Deal, ScD, MSc, MPH, MN, BSN, Humane Prison Hospice Project in collaboration with the California Department of Corrections
ADVANCED-Comfort: Improving Dementia Care in the Chinese American Community
– Chinese Americans with advanced dementia are at risk for unwanted and invasive end of life procedures due to cultural and family-based decision-making preferences. This project aims to enhance dementia care in the Chinese American community by developing a culturally tailored ADVANCED-Comfort program, designed to improve access to personalized comfort care and empower families to make comfort-focused care decisions through education and guided planning.
– Principal Investigator: Ruth Palan Lopez, PhD, MGH Institute of Health Professions
Perinatal Palliative Care: Supporting Parents Through Life-Limiting Fetal Diagnosis
– The current standard of care for a life-limiting fetal condition (LLFC) is limited to clinical care for mother and infant and does not address the continued, complex needs of parents following the death of their child. Building on a successful pilot study of an intervention to address the holistic healthcare of these parents, this project seeks to broaden its reach to marginalized groups, including BIPOC and LGBTQ+ populations and people whose access to healthcare is limited by location or transportation challenges.
– Principal Investigator: Denise Côté-Arsenault, PhD, RN, CPCLC, FNAP, FAAN, Saint Louis University
Unheard Voices: Partnering with Spanish-Speaking Parents and Interpreters to Guide a Nurse-Led Approach to Reduce End of Life Suffering
– Language can be an obstacle in ensuring that all children nearing end of life (EOL) receive high quality care. Families who speak languages other than English are also often excluded from pediatric EOL research. This project will work with Spanish-speaking parents and medical interpreters to identify processes to help nurses tailor EOL care to families’ needs across language barriers and build infrastructure to include linguistically diverse families in future intervention development.
– Principal Investigator: Elizabeth Broden, PhD, RN, Yale University School of Medicine
Breaking Barriers, Honoring Wishes: Advancing End of Life Care in Marginalized Communities
– Advance care planning for older adults can be difficult, disjointed, and inaccessible, particularly for minority populations, which can result in futile life-saving measures, late hospice referrals, delayed comfort, caregiver strain, and inadequate grief support. This project will develop a holistic approach to end of life (EOL) conversations and increase planning for disadvantaged populations through a hybrid clinic that partners with health, law, and faith ministry professionals to educate clients about options and document their preferences.
– Principal Investigators: Amanda Kirkpatrick, PhD, RN, FAAN, FNAP and Meghan Potthoff, PhD, APRN-NP, PPCNP-BC, CPNP-AC, Creighton University, College of Nursing
Community-Based Serious Illness Support: A Grassroots Network
– Older adults in rural counties lack or have limited access to palliative care. This project further develops the Oregon Network for Community-Based Serious Illness Support, which is inspired by the Compassionate Communities model of care in which all community members have a role to play in supporting each other during times of illness, grief, and loss. Through a public health approach to providing palliative care and engaging community members, this project seeks to improve quality of life for those with serious illness and improve rural health equity.
– Principal Investigators: Erin Collins, MN, RN, CHPN and Elizabeth Johnson, MA, The Peaceful Presence Project
Supporting Coping Efforts for Black Mothers After Stillbirth
– Stillbirths are twice as common for Black mothers as for White mothers, and there are few interventions to support them after this experience. Collaborating with healthcare professionals and Black mothers with lived experience, this project seeks to develop a new culturally sensitive and needed intervention to facilitate adaptive coping for Black women after stillbirth.
– Principal Investigator: Carrie Henry, PhD, CNM, RN, The University of Alabama
Post-Acute Transition to Home with Supportive Care (PATHS): An NP-Led Telehealth Intervention for Black & Latinx Patients & Families at End of Life
– For Black and Latinx people with cancer who have declined further treatment and hospice, the transition from hospital to home is one of the most difficult periods, with extreme risk for preventable suffering, overwhelming caregiver burden, and hospital readmission. This project will test an adapted version of the Post-Acute Transitions from Hospital to Home with Supportive Care (PATHS) — a nurse-led intervention to reduce patient and family distress while encouraging hospice enrollment for home-based supportive care.
– Principal Investigators: William Rosa, PhD, MBE, APRN, FAANP, FPCN, FAAN and Judith Nelson, MD, JD, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Empowering Nurses to Initiate and Lead “Advance Care Planning for All” in Primary Care Settings
– Advance Care Planning (ACP) in primary care settings is not conducted equitably and clinicians often feel uncomfortable having these conversations with patients from diverse backgrounds. To address these gaps in care, this project will train nurses to lead a systematic and interprofessional approach to ACP practice in a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) primary care clinic.
– Principal Investigator: Eriko Onishi, MD, Oregon Health and Science University
Supporting the Needs of Bereaved Siblings in School: A Crowdsourced Approach
– Children who lose a sibling are at high risk for emotional, behavioral, and social difficulties, and there are very few supports for them. This project will use insights crowdsourced from interdisciplinary healthcare professionals, community support groups, and parent advocates to identify the needs of bereaved siblings, develop resources and guidance, and explore schools as a setting for support.
– Principal Investigator: Sarah Wawrzynski, PhD, CCRN, Nemours Children’s Hospital
About The Rita and Alex Hillman Foundation
The Rita and Alex Hillman Foundation advances bold, nursing-driven innovations that promote equitable, person-centered, and trustworthy care. It is committed to improving the health and healthcare of all people, especially populations who experience inequity, discrimination, oppression, and indifference. Its goal is to help ignite and develop game-changing interventions and to cultivate a vibrant ecosystem of nurse innovators, grantees, and partners dedicated to building a healthier, more equitable future for all. For more information, please visit www.rahf.org.
About The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations
The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations were organized in 1952 and are supported by two trusts established by Mr. Arthur Vining Davis. The Foundations aim to bear witness to Mr. Davis’ successful corporate leadership and his ambitious philanthropic vision. Since their inception, the Foundations have given over 4,600 grants totaling more than $385 million to support inclusive higher education and healthcare, high-quality public media, vibrant spiritual communities, and a clean environment. In supporting these sectors, the Foundations are investing in our common future. For more information, please visit www.avdf.org.
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