Dale Lupu

Dale Lupu headshot

Dale Lupu

Ph.D., M.P.H.

Research Professor


Contact:

Email: Dale Lupu
Office Phone: 202-994-0598
1919 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Suite 500, 532 Washington, D.C. 20006

Dale Lupu is a national leader in hospice and palliative care. She has more than 35 years experience successfully creating innovative organizations, systems, policies, educational programs and research to improve patients’ access to the care that supports their goals at the end of life. Dr. Lupu has consulted with scores of hospices across the country on a variety of strategic and operational issues, and she has a deep understanding of the dynamics at play in local markets that can inhibit or promote quality hospice care and access.

Her current research includes testing advance care planning for patients with chronic kidney disease, projecting national workforce needs for hospice and palliative care, and understanding the impact of changes in hospice finance and regulation on quality of care and access. She was part of the team that conceived and led the national consensus project, “Measuring What Matters” conducted by the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine and the Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association to select a set of recommended quality measures suitable for hospice and palliative care programs. She served as a member of the CMS Hospice Payment System Technical Advisory Panel. She has been consulting with the Coalition for Supportive Care of Kidney Patients since 2013 to accelerate adoption of palliative and supportive care principles in kidney care.

She holds a faculty appointment in the GW School of Nursing and adjunct appointments at GW's Milken School of Public Health and the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University. In 2011, she developed and taught the first public health school courses on hospice and palliative care for the Schools of Public Health at Johns Hopkins and George Washington Universities. Formerly CEO of the American Board of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, she helped guide formation of the physician subspecialty of hospice and palliative medicine and obtain its official recognition as a subspecialty from ABMS and ACGME. Active in the hospice field since 1978, she had early exposure to the policy environment as the lead policy analyst for hospice at ASPE in the Department of Health and Human Services during the early 1980s when the Medicare hospice benefit was being formulated.


  • Gerald H. Holman Distinguished Service Award — American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine (2008)
  • Principal Investigator: The Patrick and Catherine Weldon Donaghue Medical Research Foundation has funded a three-year project (2016-2018) to conduct a trial of advance care planning for patients with chronic kidney disease. The project is now called MY WAY: Make Your Wishes About You. An initial phase of the project was the development and distribution of a patient guide about advance care planning specifically designed for patients with chronic kidney disease as well as a coach training curriculum. These are being widely distributed by the Coalition for Supportive Care of Kidney Patients (CSCKP), which is a national coalition of all of the major organizations involved in the care of patients with chronic kidney disease. 
  • Researcher: In collaboration with Ed Salsberg, have just completed a physician workforce study for the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine.
  • Co-Principal Investigator: The Moore Foundation has funded the Coalition for Supportive Care of Kidney Patients (CSCKOP) to develop a set of change concepts and toolkit for the development of supportive care pathways for patients with chronic kidney disease. This is a 15-month project (2017-March 2018) that is laying the groundwork for a demonstration of supportive kidney care in the ESCO environment.
  • Bickel KE, McNiff K, Buss MK, et al. Defining High-Quality Palliative Care in Oncology Practice: An American Society of Clinical Oncology/American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine Guidance Statement. J Oncol Pract. 2016;12(9):e828-e838. doi:10.1200/JOP.2016.010686.
  • Culp S, Lupu D, Arenella C, Armistead N, Moss A. Unmet Supportive Care Needs in United States Dialysis Centers and Lack of Knowledge of Available Resources to Address Them. Journal Of Pain And Symptom Management. December 17, 2015; doi:10.1016/j.jpainsymman.2015.11.017
  • Moss, AH, Armistead, N., & Lupu, D. (2015). End-Stage Kidney Disease Without Dialysis. Health Affairs, 34(11). doi:10.1377/hlthaff.2015.1225 
  • Dy SM, Kiley KB, Ast K, Lupu D, Norton SA, McMillan SC, Herr K, Rotella JD, Casarett DJ, (2015) Measuring What Matters: Top-Ranked Quality Indicators for Hospice and Palliative Care from the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine and Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association.  J Pain Symptom Manage. 2015 Apr;49(4):773-81. doi: 10.1016/j.jpainsymman.2015.01.012. Epub 2015 Feb 16.
  • Lupu, D. E., Ivanko, B., Insana, F., White, P. H., & Arnold, R. M. (2014). Hospice Innovation Impediments: Can Halfway Efforts Tame the Terrible Choice? Journal of Palliative Medicine, 17(10), 1088-1090. doi:10.1089/jpm.2014.0268
  • Kamal AH, Hanson LC, Casarett DJ, Dy SM, Pantilat SZ, Lupu D, Abernethy AP. (2015) The Quality Imperative for Palliative Care. Journal of Pain and Symptom Management. ISSN: 1873-6513, 2015 Feb; Vol. 49 (2), pp. 243-53; PMID: 25057987 Epub: 2014 Jul 21, doi: 10.1016/j.jpainsymman.2014.06.008. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=25057987
  • Lupu D, Deneszczuk C, Leystra T, McKinnon R, Seng V. (2013) Few US Public Health Schools Offer Courses on Palliative and End-of-Life Care Policy. Journal of Palliative Medicine. 2013 Dec;16 (12):1582-7. doi: 10.1089/jpm.2013.0161. Epub 2013 Nov 20. PMID: 24256202
  • Dy S, Lupu D, Seow H. (2012) Progress towards systems of quality measurement that capture the essence of good palliative care. Palliative Medicine. 2012 Jun;26(4):291-3
  • Lupu D, Gladstein R. (2012) Parashah Meditations. Kerem: Creative Explorations in Judaism. 2012 13:9-23
  • Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, Doctor of Philosophy (1996)
  • Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, Master of Public Health (1988)
  • Harvard-Radcliffe College, Bachelor of Art (1978)
  • Ambulatory Care
  • Community Health
  • Diabetes Management
  • Maternal / Child Health
  • Quality Improvement
  • Women's Health
  • Strategic
  • Achiever
  • Learner
  • Input
  • Ideation