Nominations for the 2024 Award for Excellence in Program Innovation are open until May 15. For an example of the type of aging and public health work we are looking to recognize, there’s no need to look further than our honoree last year.
Each year, in partnership with the American Public Health Association’s Aging and Public Health Section, Archstone Foundation presents an Award for Excellence in Program Innovation to recognize best practices in models in caring for older adults. For more than 25 years, the award has highlighted programs that link academic theory and applied practice in public health and aging. By elevating these innovative model programs on a national stage, we hope they can be replicated and enhance the lives of more and more older people.
The Chinese American Coalition for Compassionate Care (CACCC) Heart to Heart Café® was recognized for its creative use of a playing card game to spark discussions in a safe, comfortable space about end of life and death. The Cupertino-based coalition developed the Heart to Heart Café with the understanding that games are culturally appropriate for Chinese Americans, who often play cards and gambling games during social gatherings.
Many Chinese families encounter challenges when communicating with healthcare professionals because of language or cultural barriers, and few Chinese language end-of-life resources are available. This, combined with discomfort in talking about end-of-life issues and preferences, makes it difficult to openly discuss or plan for the end of life.
Guided by two or more trained facilitators using playing card questions as prompts, a Heart to Heart Café promotes communication among family members, caregivers, and healthcare providers to understand a person’s end-of-life wishes. Each suit in the deck is focused on a different sort of concern – spiritual (hearts), financial (diamonds), social (clubs), and physical (spades).
The game’s popularity, and success in starting many more conversations about dying, has now led to the use of these decks of cards among Chinese Americans across the country.
A study of this advanced care planning tool, published in the American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Medicine in 2021, reported virtually all participants (99 percent) found the activity pleasant, said they were able to express themselves and their wishes about the end of life, and described the activity as making it easier to talk about death. Many also shared that participating in a Heart to Heart Café was the first time they had end-of-life conversations. And seven in eight participants (86.5 percent) said they intended to complete an advance healthcare directive and said the program created a comfortable, supportive, patient-centered, and culturally relevant environment for discussing death and advance care planning for Chinese Americans.
That impressive success rate accelerated CACCC’s efforts to persuade more than 300 local, state, and national partner organizations to help disseminate the Heart to Heart Café model. And that effective engagement effort is one reason CACCC should serve as an example for other ethnic communities who are looking to address end-of-life concerns unique to their culture and race.
Organizations with similarly innovative ideas are urged to apply for this year’s Award for Excellence in Program Innovation in the coming weeks. A list of past awardees and the application is here.
