Hospice Care

For many, the word "hospice" is difficult to hear.  It conjures up feelings of hopelessness and abandonment....but the realities are so much more promising.  Hospice often opens the door for more meaningful choices when curative treatments are no longer effective; families can obtain the support and services they need with confidence to address end-of-life issues in the home, care facility, skilled nursing or hospital settings.

 Hospice care involves addressing all the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of the resident and their families, then coordinating that with the medical team for a collaborative plan of care.  Hospice staff are accustomed to having difficult conversations about medical treatment decisions and can personalize the approach for each individual. 

Having Hospice care available to residents may improve the quality of care for residents by positively influencing nursing home clinical practices.  Residents enrolled in Hospice are:

• Less likely to be hospitalized
• More likely to be assessed for pain and receive pain treatment
• Less likely to be physically restrained
• Less likely to have parenteral or IV feeding
• Less likely to have feeding tubes in place
• Less likely to have medications administered by IV or intramuscular injection
• More likely to have completed an advance directive.  

As a result, nursing staff become more aware of end-of-life issues and their attitudes toward hospice change.  They come to realize that hospice care does not cause patients to die sooner; in fact many residents live longer and more comfortably because of the multidisciplinary services provided by the entire team of hospice professionals.