Our role at Interim HealthCare Hospice is to support our patients and families as they approach the end of their lives. We will help them understand the choices available to them and work to support them in their decisions. We will provide personalized care, coordinating the services that will make them safe and comfortable. We encourage contact with friends and family that allow important things to be spoken, remembered and celebrated. Our focus will be to meet the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of our clients and those who love and care for them.
Our interdisciplinary hospice group is made up of professionals who address the medical, emotional, psychological and spiritual needs of the patient and loved ones.
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Many hospices use tools to let them see how well they are doing in relation to quality hospice standards. In addition, most programs use family satisfaction surveys to get feedback on the performance of their programs. To help hospice programs in making sure they give quality care and service, the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization has developed recommended standards entitled ‘Standards of Practice for Hospice Programs’ as one way of ensuring quality.
There are also voluntary accreditation organizations that evaluate hospice programs to protect consumers. These organizations survey hospices to see whether they are providing care that meets defined quality standards. These reviews consider the customary practices of the hospice, such as policies and procedures, medical records, personal records, evaluation studies, and in many cases also include visits to patients and families currently under care of that hospice program. A hospice program may volunteer to obtain accreditation from one of these organizations.
Hospice volunteers are generally available to provide different types of support to patients and their loved ones including running errands, preparing light meals, staying with a patient to give family members a break, and lending emotional support and companionship to patients and family members.
Because hospice volunteers spend time in patients’ and families’ homes, each hospice program generally has some type of application and interview process to assure the person is right for this type of volunteer work. In addition, hospice programs have an organized training program for their patient care volunteers. Areas covered by these training programs often include understanding hospice, confidentiality, working with families, listening skills, signs and symptoms of approaching death, loss and grief and bereavement support.
Every hospice patient has access to a hospice volunteer, registered nurse, social worker, home health aide, medical director, and chaplain (also known as the interdisciplinary team). For each patient and family, the interdisciplinary team writes a care plan with the patient/family that is used to make sure the patient and family receive the care they need from the team. Typically, full-time registered nurses provide care to about a dozen different families. Social workers usually work with about twice the number of patients/families as nurses. If needed, home health aides, who provide personal care to the patient, will visit most frequently.
All visits, however, are based on the patient and family needs as described in the care plan and the condition of the patient during the course of illness. The frequency of volunteers and spiritual care is often dependent upon the family request and the availability of these services.
Whether it’s providing companionship to a person in the final months or weeks of life, offering support to family members and caregivers, providing assistance in the office or helping with community outreach, the contributions of volunteers are an essential part of Interim HealthCare's Hub City Hospice Program.
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At Interim HealthCare Hospice, we understand that crucial components of hospice care are bereavement care and grief support. We are committed to bereavement services for the families and for the overall community in general.
Read about the Myths and Facts of Hospice Care.
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