Comfort Care Coalition 

The Comfort Care Coalition (CCC) was formed as a Robert Wood Johnson Rallying Points group with a mission to serve as a broad-based community network to educate community members and advocate for people with a life-threatening illness and end-of-life concerns. The CCC was founded in November 2002, as an outgrowth of the University of Tennessee Health Sciences Center College of Nursing Cashdollar Lecture. The Cashdollar Lectures are an endowed series of annual lectures that supply local health care providers with up-to-date information to improve the quality of care they give to dying individuals. The CCC received recognition of federal income tax exemption in June 2004. Goals of the Coalition include:

• Build a broad-based community network
• Maintain a speakers bureau
• Provide community education via literature, workshops, and symposium
• Inform the community via speakers, media, and the arts
• Secure ongoing funding

Members of the Coalition come from all areas of the community: education, faith-based groups, the arts, entertainment, health care providers, caregivers, and the community at large. Coalition partners include Allen Morgan Health Center; Amedisys Hospice; Baptist Trinity Hospice; Calvary Episcopal Church; the Catholic Diocese of Memphis; the Church Health Wellness Center; Church of the Holy Communion, Episcopal; Crossroads Hospice; the Funeral Consumers Alliance of the Mid-South; Common Table Health Alliance; Methodist Alliance Hospice; St. Francis Hospital; Trezevant Manor Retirement Community; and the University of Tennessee Health Science Center College of Nursing.