...Hospice Creation of Hospice Hospice care is designed to give supportive care to people in the final phase of a terminal illness and focus on comfort and quality of life rather than cure. The goal is to enable patients to be comfortable and free of pain, so that they live each day as fully as possible. The term “hospice” ( from the same linguistic root as “hospitality”) can be traced back to medieval times when it referred to a place of shelter and rest for the weary or terminally ill on a long journey in 1948 (History of Hospice Care, 2012). The name of the physician was Dame Cicely Saunders who treated the terminally ill and eventually went on to create the first modern hospice, named St Christopher’s Hospice, in a residential suburb of London. (History of Hospice Care, 2012). Ms. Saunders introduced the idea of specialized care for the dying to the United States of America during a 1963 visit with Yale University. Her lecture, given to medical students, nurses, social workers, and chaplains, about the concept of holistic hospital care, included photos of terminally ill patients and their families, showing the dramatic differences before and after the symptom control care (History of Hospice Care, 2012). Ownership In 2010, there were over 5000 hospice programs nationwide (Facts and Figures: Hospice Care in America, 2012). The majority of these facilities are freestanding agencies constituting 58 percent of all hospice centers (Facts and Figures: Hospice Care in America...
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...Abstract The increase in online health information and services often challenges and streamlines the delivery of adequate patient care. In addition access to technology will affect the delivery of health care socially, economically, and ethically. As a consultant of StateServ Home Medical, the writer will present the importance of accurate delivery of a health information technology tool that will allow healthcare professionals Internet access to schedule the ordering and delivery of DME (durable medical equipment). This electronic ordering system will improve the hospice organization’s efficiency. The consultant’s description of StateServ Home Medical will reveal the program to significantly shift the telephone ordering process to Internet access. That leaves the hospice organization’s nursing staff with more time to mange patient care cases. In the ongoing evolution of adapt technologies, hospice organizations should factor integrated durable medical equipment ordering systems that will serve at enhancing patients’ level of care and lower delivery cost. This latest technology will also serve as a maintenance control function which results in complete and accurate billing procedures that will capture active supply use by patients. StateServe Home Medical network services will allow the hospice organization to continue to work alongside their local durable medical equipment providers and gain access to StateServ Home Medical’s real-time order management...
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...Executive Summary When people think of Hospice, they think of someone who is dying within the next couple of days, but it isn’t what it seems. Hospice is not a place; it’s a philosophy of care that enhances life as it nears its end for the patients and their families and friends. (Odyssey Health Care, 2013). Some people may feel that it’s scary to have to see someone going through something that they cannot fix, but what people have to realize is that you are making a difference in their lives. Some of the patients don’t have any family, so for someone to just go and talk to them for less than 30 minutes can really make a difference. The patients that are in Hospice sometimes don’t even show symptoms and act completely normal. Most patients accept that they are going to pass, so they usually do whatever they can before that happens. As soon as the physician let’s the patients know that hospice care is appropriate, they call Odyssey Hospice nurses. Within three hours, 24 hours a day, seven days out of the week, the patient is admitted into the program. At the end of life, what often matters most to a person who is dying is simply taking the time to hold a hand, give support and just be there. We as Odyssey Hospice volunteers would like to improve the quality of life of all individuals who see Hospice as something different then what it actually is. Mission Statement To provide compassionate care to those we serve during the end of life’s journey through our commitment to...
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...simulation exercise I had little to no idea how home care health and hospice care was regulated by health insurance companies and Medicare. They both have different goals. Home health care aids at improving the patient’s condition through administration of treatment and other services, which must be covered by Medicare. According to Stanhope & Lancaster (2014), Hospice care can be either “home-based and/or in-patient…focus on comfort, pain relief, and mitigation of other distressing symptoms.” The simulation was focused on three different scenarios; home health care, transition to hospice and hospice care. This paper will discuss my experience with each scenario, the debriefing process and how the experience changed my nursing practice....
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...Hospice Care How much do people know about hospice care and what is involved in it? We research just about every big decision that affects our lives right now. For example we may research what career is best for us and our family, what kind of car best fits our financial needs, what kind of mortgage can we afford over a long period, and more important how is the neighborhood. Research is even conducted on something as small as what is the latest and greatest phone on the market. We spend hours or some times days researching these decisions, but how much time do we spend looking into the last days of our lives? If the average American is like me, they have not done any research about hospice care. My knowledge of hospice care was very limited by personal experience with both of my grandparents. Several years ago both of my grandparents were suffering from terminal illnesses and were placed in a hospice in Los Angeles with only a few months to live. I recall going to visit both of them and remember how poor the facility was. Just like with almost anything involving medical care, you get what you pay for. Neither one of my grandparents were financially at the top of the health care ladder and were both on Medicare like most Americans in their demographic. Hospice care was first established in the United States in 1970 and has become a growing industry since. (Hospice care in the United States, 2011) By 1995, hospices were a $2.8 billion industry with $1...
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...Hospice Care The hospice care movement was born out of the concern for doing something for terminally ill and dying patients. Once medical care services for our terminally ill patients were no longer of benefit and our physicians could do no more, we had to turn to another source of care. One of the main objectives of the medical staff is to prolong life at all costs. When the medical staff no longer has the upper hand or mastery over disease and death, that’s when alternative care, such as hospice care can be provided. The hospice practice as it is today and as it was in the past focused on the control of pain for the terminally ill. Hospice care not only manages pain control but it also focuses on the physical, psychological, social and spiritual needs of the patient and their families. Hospice care focuses on reducing high hospital cost for the terminally ill too. Once the hospice care movement was accepted into our society, society was ready to talk about death and dying and caring for terminally ill patients. Our society was ready to support the hospice care movement in whatever way thy could. Committees were formed to discuss how to treat the terminally ill. This committee wanted to get involved. The community got involved as well as some of the other health care systems. Some of the health care systems wanted to develop hospice care at their facilities. Helping our terminally ill patients through the hospice care movement began to spread. Hope...
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...Despite high levels of satisfaction expressed by hospice employees when compared to employees in other sectors of health care, hospice social workers have the lowest job satisfaction compared to other professionals on the hospice interdisciplinary team (Casarret, Spencer, Haskins, & Teno, 2011; Monroe & DeLoach, 2004). Job satisfaction amongst health care employees contributes to the retention or tenure of qualified and experienced employees (Fritzsche & Parrish, 2005; Head, Washington & Myers, 2013; Kobayshi & McCallister, 2013; Miller, 2008). High turnover has been shown to be associated with decreased job satisfaction among direct care hospice workers and has also been shown to compromise quality of care for hospice patients (Dill & Kagle,...
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...Hospice Care in the United States Catherine Harmer HCS.212 Feb.23, 2013 Prof. Mark Miller Hospice Care in the United States Hospice care is one of the best services the health care industry has to offer, and is available to all walks of life. When the patient has reached end of life, hospice provides support to the loved ones as well. “Hospice focuses on caring, not curing and, in most cases; care is provided in the patient’s home. Hospice care also is provided in freestanding hospice centers, hospitals, and nursing homes and other long-term care facilities. Hospice services are available to patients of any age, religion, race, or illness. Hospice care is covered under Medicare, Medicaid, most private insurance plans, HMOs, and other managed care organizations” (NHPCO, 2011, par.2). Hospice care has evolved over many years and has a lot to offer: Patients are kept as comfortable as humanly possible. For loved ones, finding peace or comfort is likely more achievable when helping their loved ones let go, making the course of grieving and acceptance much less difficult. Caregivers, employees, and volunteers are faced day-to-day with the reality that life as we know it does expire; it is only fitting then, that greater patience and appreciation of self, family, and life in general become more characteristic of the providers than might be otherwise. This facet of health care, one might fear, would require tremendous resilience. On the other hand however, facilitating a...
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...person the right to state the last wishes of a dying person. There are four kinds of legal advance directives that are followed in any case of the dying and the parties left behind to decide. The first choice is the living will of a person. The second choice is the durable power of attorney given by a person to another person to decide. The third choice is a person legally stating their wants in writing before they are ill. The last choice is the person leaving the choice to a health care agent through a health care agency. I have personally been involved in every situation of this topic. My mother got ill and put a durable power of attorney in place for me to make the decisions for her care. There came a time when I couldn’t afford the cost of her choice and she signed her care over to a hospice facility and they became responsible for care and I lost the right to make any decisions about her care. She made this decision because the hospital wouldn’t let me take her home and the facility said that they would grant her wishes when she signed up with them. In the end, they gave my drugs to speed up the process of her death because they didn’t want pay for her care to live longer then the insurance company would pay the facility. Any choice that is made has consequences to it because someone will be unhappy in the end...
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...Hospice care The goal of hospice is to help patients live their last days as alert and pain-free as possible. Hospice care tries to manage symptoms so that a person's last days may be spent with dignity and quality. Hospice care treats the person rather than the disease; it focuses on quality rather than length of life. Hospice care is family-centered -- it includes the patient and the family in making decisions. This care is planned to cover 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Hospice care can be given in the patient's home, a hospital, nursing home, or private hospice facility. Hospice care is used when you can no longer be helped by curative treatment, and you are expected to live about 6 months or less if the illness runs its usual course. Hospice gives you palliative care, which is treatment to help relieve disease-related symptoms, but not cure the disease; its main purpose is to improve your quality of life. You, your family, and your doctor decide together when hospice care should begin. A team of professionals In most cases, an interdisciplinary health care team manages hospice care. This means that many interacting disciplines work together. Doctors, nurses, social workers, counselors, home health aides, clergy, therapists, and trained volunteers care for you and your family. Each of these people offers support based on their special areas of expertise. Together, they give you and your loved ones complete palliative care aimed at relieving symptoms and giving...
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...Health Care Support Services Paper Health Care Support Services Paper The last thing that you want to here is that a loved one is terminally ill. In this situation we try to do anything we can to support our loved one in their hour of need. The truth is that most of us are not trained to care for our family members and if we could one person could not provide the care and support that they need. The good news is that there is an organization that can help your loved one through this difficult time by providing health care, therapy, comfort, dignity, and emotional support. The health care service that I am referring to is hospice care. Hospice care is different from regular health care in that Hospice is a style of caring for people. Hospice care is intended for patients who’s doctor puts their life expectancy no longer than six months. In the following reading I will provide a detailed description of hospice care including the demographics, services and a reason for choosing hospice as my topic. The beginnings of hospice care is debated by many authors. The majority of authors agree that a form of hospice did exist before the 19th century outside of the United States. The foundation of hospice care started to take form in London somewhere about 1948. Hospice care came to the United States in 1963 by a physician Cicely Saunders who spoke of the new style of care given to terminally ill patients. After the first introduction back in 1963 hospice care in the United States...
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...Death is one of the most frightening and confusing times a person can go through. Watching a loved one pass away is also one of the hardest trials a person can experience. Many people assume that death is a time of pain and the only thing that they can do is mourn and watch their loved one fade away. But there are programs out there to help not just the dying person but also the families of the dying person. Palliative care and Hospice care are two of the programs in the U.S that are tailored to medical care, pain management, and emotional and spiritual support for the patient and family. At the center of hospice and palliative care is the belief that each of us has the right to die pain-free and with dignity, and that our families will receive the necessary support to allow us to do so. Palliative care focuses on relieving symptoms that are related to chronic illnesses, such as cancer, cardiac disease, respiratory disease, kidney failure, Alzheimer’s and other dementias, AIDS, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and other neurological diseases. World Health Organization defines Palliative care as “improving the quality of life of patients and families who face life-threatening illness, by providing pain and symptom relief, spiritual and psychosocial support to from diagnosis to the end of life and bereavement” (“WHO”, 2013). Palliative care is accessed at any point during the course of a chronic illness regardless of life expectancy. It is typically provided through regular physician...
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...The roots of hospice care began in the 1960s as a benevolent movement to provide dying patients more time with their families in a dignified manner. The hospice industry is now a fourteen-billion-dollar industry, run primarily by for profit industries. Hospice facilities play a crucial role in delivering palliative services to patients and their families. In the United States, about half of all deaths happen in a hospice program. When a patient is certified by their primary care physician and a hospice medical physician that they are terminally ill and has six months or less to live, they are then qualified to receive hospice benefits. Hospice care encompasses nursing, home health aide, social worker, and counseling services; most hospice care is provided in the home setting. As part of the health care industry, hospices are also subject to negligence cases. Negligent tort cases can arise when there is an “unintentional failure to live up to accepted standards of behaviors”. The four key elements to any negligence case are duty of care, breach of duty, harm, and causation. A legal study of various hospice negligence cases will be conducted to...
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...Franciscan Hospice and Palliative Care Cindra Jones BSHS301 September 29, 2012 Christopher Bingham FRANCISCAN HOSPICE AND PALLIATIVE CARE I chose Franciscan Hospice and Palliative Care because I am interested in the valuable service they provide to the community. I wanted to know exactly what they do and how it is paid for so I made an appointment to talk to someone at the Franciscan Hospice and Palliative Care facility. Hospice is care designed to give supportive care to people in the final phase of a terminal illness and focus on comfort and quality of life, rather than a cure. The word “hospice” comes from the Latin “hospitum” meaning guesthouse. It was originally a place of shelter for sick and weary travelers. Palliative care is the treatment and relief of mental and physical pain for those with a life threatening illness. This treatment uses several types of therapy to make a person comfortable and free of pain. I was very fortunate to meet Pam Ketzner, the hospice educator and registered nurse at the Franciscan Hospice and Palliative Care facility located in University Place, Washington. Pam is in charge of educating the hospice nursing staff. With new equipment and medications always becoming available, she instructs the nurses on their proper use. She has been a nurse for 35 years. She was a visiting nurse to begin with and then became the head of education so she spends most of her time at the facility. She feels very privileged to be a part of...
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...Community Health Practice March 27, 2013 Western Governor’s University A. Personal Perceptions As a Registered Nurse for thirteen years in an acute care hospital setting, I have tended to many dying patients. It is my personal belief that quality of life and health promotion are imperative to the care of the terminally ill patient. Personally, I am a big fan of palliative care nursing. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines palliative care as “an approach that improves the quality of life of patients and their families facing the problem associated with life-threatening illness, through the prevention and relief of suffering by means of early identification and impeccable assessment and treatment of pain and other problems, physical, psychosocial, and spiritual.” B. Strategies Improving Mrs. Thomas’ quality of life would comprise of assisting her with her increased level of pain, limited amount of emotional support, and financial concerns. Firstly, Mrs. Thomas’ physical comfort needs addressed immediately. As evidenced by the patient spending large amounts of her day crying in bed, her pain is not under control. As her nurse, I would listen to her fears about addiction, but discuss quality of life versus drug addiction. I would explain how once her pain is tolerable, she will be able to assume a more productive, engaged role in her own life. Secondly, addressing Mr. and Mrs. Thomas’ financial concerns would be my next order of business. Insufficient health care...
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