OVERVIEW OF HOSPICE

Hospice care is a type of health care that focuses on the palliation of a terminally ill patient's pain and symptoms and attending to their emotional and spiritual needs at the end of life.

OUR APPROACH

O

ur wholistic palliative care team is made up of highly-skilled health care professionals who provide their skills, training, innate compassion and dedication to end-of-life dignity to provide comfort, whole-person spiritual and emotional care, family support and maximal comfort throughout the final journey.

These are the primary services provided by our team:
1. Minimize or alleviate patient pain and monitor pain medication
2. Provide whole-person and whole-family spiritual and psychological support
3. Communicate patient and their family on the process of dying
4. Provides medical equipment and supplies, as needed
5. Provides and educates family on detailed aspects of patient care
6. Provides Respite care of family caregivers
7. Bereavement counseling

FOCUS ON QUALITY OF LIFE

Hospice care prioritizes comfort and quality of life by reducing pain and suffering. Hospice care provides an alternative to therapies focused on life-prolonging measures that may be arduous, likely to cause more symptoms, or are not aligned with a person's goals.

PRIORITY ON COMFORT

The goal of hospice care is to prioritize comfort, quality of life and individual wishes. How comfort is defined is up to each individual or, if the patient is incapacitated, the patient's family. This can include addressing physical, emotional, spiritual and/or social needs. The nurse will also support the family after death and connect the family to bereavement services.

NURSING CARE

The hospice home health nurse must be skilled in both physical care and psychosocial care. Some of the nurse’s duties will include reassuring family members and ensuring adequate pain control. The nurse will need to explain to the patient and family that a pain free death is possible and scheduled opioid pain medications are appropriate in this case.

CARE PLANNING

In hospice care, patient-directed goals are integral and interwoven throughout the care. Hospices typically do not perform treatments that are meant to diagnose or cure an illness but also do not include treatments that hasten death. The nurse will need to work closely with the medical provider to ensure that dosing is appropriate, and in the case of tolerance, the dose is raised.

FEEDING PUMPS

Timeline of Hospice TIMELINE OF HOSPICE CARE: Patients can receive hospice care when they have less than six months to live or would like to shift the focus of care from curative to comfort care.

Pain Relief PAIN RELIEF: Instead, hospices focus on palliative care to relieve pain and symptoms. Nurses that work in hospice in the home healthcare setting aim to relieve pain and holistically support their patients and patient’s families.

Family Centered Care FAMILY-CENTERED CARE: The goal of hospice care is to meet the needs of both the patient and family, knowing that a home death is not always to best outcome. Medicare covers all costs of hospice treatment.

Multidisciplinary Support MULTIDISCIPLINARY SUPPORT: Most nurses will work with a team that includes a physician, social worker and possibly a spiritual care counselor. The nurse should be aware of cultural differences and needs and should aim to meet them.

OVERVIEW OF HOSPICE

FOCUS ON QUALITY OF LIFE

PRIORITY ON COMFORT

NURSING CARE

CARE PLANNING

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