TOP 100 MAGAZINE

Elizabeth M. Uslander, MSW MTS

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Elizabeth Uslander has never been one to accept limitations—especially when it comes to healthcare. With a lifelong mission to “humanize healthcare by removing barriers to access,” she has devoted her career to transforming how individuals and families experience life’s final chapter. Her work spans decades and disciplines, from hospice social work and private counseling to organizational leadership and systems development. In 2021, she co-founded Empowered Endings™—a bold initiative uniting clinical care, education, and nonprofit advocacy under one umbrella. By 2025, she had assumed her current role as chair of the executive board, continuing to lead with empathy, vision, and an unwavering belief in dignity for all.

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A Career of Care and Courage

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Elizabeth’s path began in direct patient care, first as a hospice and home health social worker. She then partnered with her husband, Dr. Bob Uslander, as the director of his palliative care practice to grow and expand their unique model of care. Later, she launched Voyages, her own successful private counseling practice focused on palliative, end-of-life, grief, and spiritual care. With master’s degrees in social work and theological studies, and advanced certifications in a wide range of therapeutic modalities, Elizabeth created a unique model of care grounded in interpersonal connection and holistic healing.

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The Birth of Empowered Endings

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Elizabeth’s drive to make a greater impact led to the founding of the Empowered Endings™ Collective, composed of a medical group, management services organization, institute, and nonprofit foundation. Over four years, she invested her savings and worked unpaid to build the Institute’s programs, team, and platform–a $1 million investment in the future of education and end-of-life care. In 2025, she donated it to the Empowered Endings™ Foundation—a nonprofit that ensures people facing complex and terminal illness, their families, and the providers that care for them can access resources, education, and support without financial burden.

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Leading with Purpose

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As chair of the executive board, Elizabeth oversees the Foundation’s development, fundraising, and community engagement while continuing to guide its mission and vision. She also serves as CEO of the Collective’s management services organization and remains an officer of the medical group, where she focuses on optimizing systems for patients, families, and providers alike.

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A Model Built on Dignity

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Empowered Endings™is more than a healthcare initiative—it’s a movement based on equity, access, and compassion. The Foundation connects a nationwide community of providers and individuals who share a commitment to rethinking end-of-life care. At its core is a set of shared values known as CHOICES: Commitment, Humility, Ownership, Imagination, Collaboration, Empathy, and Service.

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We spoke with Elizabeth to learn more about her motivation, her mission, and her vision for the future of palliative and end-of-life care.

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How did your own life experiences inspire the creation of the Empowered Endings™ Foundation?

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Palliative care is constrained by insurance, which covers care in clinical settings, but limited in-home care, and very little support for families. Our medical practice was created to fill that gap, especially for patients with dementia, complex illnesses, or at the end of life, and the loved ones supporting them. We take a trauma-informed, wraparound approach, providing in-home doctor visits, nursing care, holistic therapies, and emotional and psychosocial support. We operate on a sliding scale, and if someone can’t afford care, we still provide it—because financial barriers should never prevent someone from receiving the support they deserve. That belief led us to create the Empowered Endings™ Foundation, addressing the broader gaps left by the insurance system and ensuring access to education, resources, and support, regardless of means.

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What makes the Foundation so unique?

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The Empowered Endings™ Foundation provides completely free access to resources, education, support, and financial assistance for specialized palliative and end-of-life care. Our online community features guest experts in geriatrics, palliative medicine, grief, and spiritual care, along with a robust resource library covering topics from aging and terminal illness to bereavement and cutting-edge medicine like psychedelics. We offer support groups, workshops, and practical tools to help individuals and families navigate these deeply personal experiences, and to support healthcare professionals in optimizing the care and advocacy they deliver.

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What truly sets us apart is our commitment to removing financial barriers. We offer assistance for services often excluded by insurance—in-home dementia care, family support, bedside nursing, vigil care, death doulas, and medical aid in dying. If a patient can’t afford the process, we cover everything, including medication and provider support. Equally importantly, we’re dedicated to amplifying the voices of unsung heroes—doctors, nurses, social workers, and death doulas—by giving them a platform to share their experience and expertise with the people who need it most.

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You also launched the Empowered Endings™ Planning Platform. Tell us about that.

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Many people come to us asking how to make sure their end-of-life journey reflects their values and wishes. While every state offers basic advance healthcare directive templates, they rarely address the deeper, more personal questions: Can I ask my family to stop feeding me so I can die peacefully? Can I legally choose an end-of-life option? How do I protect my loved ones from difficult decisions later?

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To fill that gap, we created the Empowered Endings™ End of Life Planning Platform—a comprehensive tool, powered by Thanacare, that addresses everything from dementia and death with dignity to legacy, spiritual care, and after-death arrangements. Individuals and their families can explore options, ask questions, and document their wishes to ensure their values are honored.

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Because these conversations and legal documents are so vital, the Foundation launched the End-of-Life Planning Certification, available to anyone—doctors, doulas, social workers, chaplains, estate planning attorneys—who wants to guide others in the process. This certification teaches people how to approach and support conversations about advance care planning, and how to utilize the platform—completely free, with no financial agenda.

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You have a much bigger vision for the Empowered Endings™Foundation. Will you share this with us?

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Our vision is to create Empowered Endings™Centers across the country—places where anyone can access end-of-life care, counseling, education, training, resources, and community connections we all need and deserve without financial barriers. We’re working toward an endowment to provide these services free, forever, and to build a self-sustaining, nationally recognized foundation where people find trusted care.

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Elizabeth M. Uslander, MSW MTS
Co-Founder, Empowered Endings™

Executive Chair, Empowered Endings™ Foundation
Email: elizabeth@empoweredendings.org

Website: https://empoweredendings.org

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/elizabeth-uslander

Facebook: www.facebook.com/elizabethuslander

Instagram: @elizabethuslander