Call for Proposal

Advancing patient-centered solutions across the full spectrum of home and community-based care including hospice, home health, palliative, and serious illness care.

Driven by the evolving priorities of the healthcare continuum, this conference will focus on three areas for leaders to engage in:

Advancing the Care Continuum

How is your organization….

• • Advancing the interdisciplinary, holistic framework of serious-illness care?
  • Clearly communicating, setting expectations, and maximizing in-person and virtual interactions to strengthen provider, patient, and caregiver relationships?
  • Encouraging community relationships and partnerships to advance serious-illness care?
  • Creating referrals and care transitions across settings (including primary and specialty care) to encourage earlier referrals while maximizing quality and efficiency?
  • Incorporating patient goals into care plans ensuring the right care is provided at the right time?
  • Exploring and creating new partnerships, models, alliances, and strategies within the healthcare system and other hospice, home health, and palliative care organizations?
  • Building integrated networks to provide seamless, efficient care?
  • Improving communication and addressing misconceptions about end-of-life services?
  • Developing networks and coordinating care across settings?
  • Engaging your community to address care gaps?
  • Supporting patients and families across settings and over time?
  • Identify evolving care models to improve well-being and health outcomes of caregivers, patients, and families?
  • Facilitating interdisciplinary coordination to maximize functional outcomes for patients and caregivers?
  • Breaking down care delivery silos through collaboration?
  • Promoting health equity and engaging families and communities?
  • Leveraging innovation and technology (e.g. telehealth, medical records, predictive analytics, data, and AI) to bridge and optimize care?
  • Observing patients across the care continuum?
  • Monitoring key healthcare performance indicators across the continuum?
  • Increasing the volume of patients served?

Developing Organizational Leaders

How are individuals and organizations….

• • Identifying, mentoring, motivating, developing, and retaining aspiring leaders across disciplines?
  • Integrating succession planning across disciplines and across the organization while ensuring generational diversity?
  • Improving management and leadership skills?
  • Engaging the interdisciplinary team in leadership initiatives?
  • Embracing and teaching empathetic and compassionate leadership strategies?
  • Fostering agile boards?
  • Creating a nimble leadership culture?
  • Leading diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts with your teams, community partners, vendors, and board members?
  • Connecting leaders with patients and families?
  • Preparing leaders to manage change well?
  • Making time for leadership development? 

Organizational Performance Improvement

How is your organization…

• • Scaling operations to meet operating requirements and patient needs while providing high-quality, patient-centered care?
  • Leveraging data analytics to optimize performance throughout the organization?
  • Embracing changes to improve patient care, organizational effectiveness, and financial sustainability?
  • Preparing for value-based models that share risk and reward between payers and providers?
  • Addressing financial sustainability such as operating costs, margin compression, and developing capabilities to enter risk-based reimbursement models?
  • Building brand recognition and empowering staff to become brand ambassadors?
  • Advocating for quality care and program integrity?
  • Implementing new processes amid a changing regulatory environment?
  • Building a corporate compliance program?
  • Translating regulatory requirements into action?
  • Incorporating quality into performance improvement?
  • Demonstrating the value of serious-illness care in advocacy, with payers, and to the community?
  • Redesigning staffing models to promote a culture of health and resilience while addressing staffing shortages, retention, and safety?
  • Breaking down departmental silos and educating staff on the care continuum so that staff can nimbly pivot care based on patient needs?
  • Leveraging new staffing recruitment initiatives?
  • Addressing strategies to mitigate bias and promote equitable care to diverse patient populations?
  • Receiving and responding to patient and family feedback to increase satisfaction with care?
  • Creating a service excellence culture?
  • Innovating around Medicare Managed Care?

ALC2024 is the premier conference for leaders and aspiring leaders working to advance the field of hospice and palliative care. Proposals should be geared toward one or more of the following to encourage interdisciplinary learning and collaboration:

• • Aspiring Leaders
  • CEOs/Executive Directors/Presidents
  • Clinical Management
    (e.g. Medical Directors/Physicians, Directors of Nursing, Pharmacy, Rehabilitation, Patient Care, Social Services, Spiritual Care, Therapies)
  • Community Outreach and Engagement
    (e.g. Business Development, Marketing, Sales Leaders, Account Executives)
  • Compliance, Quality, and Regulatory Professionals
  • C-Suite Officers (e.g. COO, CFO, CMO, CNO)
  • Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging Leaders
  • Interdisciplinary Team Leadership
    (e.g. Team Leads, Admissions/Intake, Volunteer Managers)
  • Operations Management
    (e.g. Billing, Philanthropic Development, HR, IT, Communications)
  • Palliative Care Professionals
  • State Association Hospice, Palliative Care, and Home Health Leaders

Guidelines for Prospective Faculty:

• • A maximum of two proposals will be selected per organization for the conference. Organizations may submit more proposals with the understanding the planning committee will select a maximum of two.
  • Where programs are direct providers of hospice and palliative care, preference will be given to members of NHPCO.
  • Individuals or organizations that are not providers of hospice or palliative care are encouraged to include a hospice and palliative care provider in their proposal.
  • Proposals submitted by individuals working for ineligible companies will only be accepted if:
    • The content is not related to the business lines or products of their employer/company, or
    • The content is limited to basic science research, such as preclinical research and drug discovery, or the methodologies of research, and they do not make care recommendations.
    • The content is non-clinical, such as leadership or communication skills training.
  • To accompany the framework and innovative focus of this conference, the planning committee is looking for diversity of thought to educate hospice and palliative care teams. Please consider including faculty from diverse backgrounds and leadership stages, as well as those who have not presented at a previous NHPCO conference.
  • Plan your submission in advance. We suggest that you first collect your thoughts for your proposal before going to the online form. Once you have your ideas and all necessary information together, go the online form. Download a Sample Form
  • Don’t underestimate the importance of instructional flow/design. Adult learning theory suggests that the best learning environments are those that are collaborative and utilize a problem-based approach.
  • Avoid all commercial bias. Sessions perceived by attendees as commercially biased in content (including use of client products or proprietary tools/models) are unacceptable. Any submission that is not educational in nature, neutral and unbiased, replicable by attendees without the author’s assistance, and free of commercial motive/intent will not be accepted. If accepted, those in violation of this policy may forfeit future speaking opportunities.
  • All accepted in-person faculty must register and if applicable, are responsible for their own travel and hotel arrangement and/or conference related expenses. Faculty receive a reduced conference rate.

We recommend that you plan your submission in advance. To do so, please download this Sample Call for Proposal Form which mirrors the online abstract form. Once you have your ideas and all the necessary information together, go to the online form to submit your proposal.

Please note that you will need to complete the abstract form prior to adding additional faculty members.

Proposal authors will receive an email notification after the selection of proposals is complete. Proposals will be accepted (live in-person, pre-recorded on-demand, or in-person alternate/pre-recorded on-demand), declined, or contingent. If an in-person alternate proposal moves to accepted in-person, faculty will be notified approximately four to six weeks prior to the conference. We receive many excellent proposal submissions, please understand that it is a difficult and highly selective process.

Faculty of accepted proposals will be directed to a conference faculty webpage where requirements and deadlines will be detailed, and questions addressed.

NHPCO’s proposal review process is conducted by members of the Conference Planning Committee, which ensures a rigorous review of every proposal. This Committees consist of members from the Professional Education Committee, representatives from professional disciplines for which NHPCO offers continuing education credit, the MyNHPCO communities, NHPCO Committees and Councils, NHPCO staff and other hospice and palliative care professionals.

Proposals are selected based on information submitted. Faculty substitutions, deletions, or additions must be approved by NHPCO. NHPCO reserves the right to edit accepted presentations for publication on NHPCO’s website and in conference marketing and informational materials.

Presentations are selected through this Call for Proposals. NHPCO is looking for diversity of thought from faculty. A detailed description of each faculty member’s education, qualifications, familiarity with the audience and presentation experience is required. Proposals are reviewed and rated based on the following criteria.

• • Relevance/Interest: Is the proposal timely and relevant to hospice and palliative care leadership? Is the topic related to the conference topics above? What is the likelihood of significant interest and appeal to leaders for this session?
  • Impactful: Does the proposal share practical information: tools, tips, practices, etc., that attendees will be able to implement and utilize following the presentation?
  • Innovation: Will the proposal share unique or innovative strategies to address a common challenge for the conference audience?
  • Faculty: Does the faculty have the appropriate and relevant experience? If multiple presenters, is there diversity of thought or experience? Is the reference information relevant?
  • Program Design: Is the presentation outline well organized, with interactive components to engage leaders to learn from each other? Are the learning outcomes measurable and achievable?

Where programs are direct providers of hospice and palliative care, preference will be given to members of NHPCO. Proposals submitted by individuals working for ineligible companies will be considered contingent until they have cleared the mitigation process and will only be accepted if:

• • The content is not related to the business lines or products of their employer/company, or
  • The content is limited to basic science research, such as preclinical research and drug discovery, or the methodologies of research, and they do not make care recommendations.
  • The content is non-clinical, such as leadership or communication skills training.

The Conference Planning Committee may provide feedback and recommendations to proposal authors. The feedback and recommendations ensure that program content is timely, relevant, and optimally targeting attendee needs. At times, proposal acceptance is contingent upon addressing Committee feedback, in these instances, feedback is relayed prior to the final selection phase. In general, feedback is provided to strengthen the session and NHPCO staff will relay feedback and recommendations during the faculty prep calls.