Kathy Brandt, MS is the Vice President of Professional Leadership, Consumer and Caregiver Services at the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization. Kathy leads NHPCO’s educational programming, access initiatives, consumer awareness efforts as well as discipline-specific and interdisciplinary leadership initiatives. Kathy is also the leader of Caring Connections, an NHPCO initiative to develop and disseminate end-of-life education, engagement and outreach materials to consumers, caregivers and professionals. Started with funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Caring Connections focuses on improving access to end-of-life care information and services to everyone facing serious illness, caregiving, death and grief and encourages people to plan before a crisis. 

Kathy rejoined the staff at the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization in 2003 after working at the nation’s largest community-based hospice for seven years, The Hospice of the Florida Suncoast.  While at The Hospice Kathy was the director of the Rallying Points Regional Resource Center, a program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and co-director of Caregiving at Life’s End: The National Train-the-trainer Program a three-year Administration on Aging grant project. 

Prior to joining The Hospice in 1996, Kathy was the associate director of professional development and research at the National Hospice Organization, where she was employed for seven years. 

Kathy has worked on national end-of-life initiatives for more than nineteen years, focusing on professional, caregiver and consumer education, public engagement, care and service delivery model dissemination, diversity initiatives and research.  Kathy currently serves on the American Society on Aging Board of Directors and is helping to lead the organization’s strategic planning process.