What is Hospice Care?

Hospice is comprehensive type of care for people with a terminal illness. Hospice is not a place, but rather a service that goes to the patient’s residence (in a home, a nursing facility, or an elderly care facility). Care is provided by the hospice team which includes doctors, nurses, home health aides, social workers, spiritual counselors, and volunteers who visit the patients periodically. The overall goal of hospice care is to ensure that the patients are comfortable and well supported.

Does Hospice Provide Nursing Care 24 Hours a Day?

Hospice has nurses available to visit patients in emergency situations at all times. The hospice agency is available to patients 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. If a patient meets the criteria for Continuous Care, the hospice may provide bed side nurses for up to 24 hours a day until the symptoms are managed and controlled.

How Does Hospice Help?

Hospice helps by sending medical professionals on periodic visits to monitor changes in patients' conditions and addressing these changes. Hospice provides education and resources for family members and caregivers to better care for the hospice patient. Hospice is available 24 hours a day and only a phone call away. In emergency situations, a nurse can always be sent out right away.

What Services Does Hospice Provide?

Hospice will provide its patients with all of the necessary medical equipment (hospital bed, wheel chair, oxygen machine, etc.), medical supplies (diapers, wipes, chux, etc.) and medications. Hospice will conveniently send these items to the patient’s home upon request

The Hospice Team

Hospice care is provided by means of an interdisciplinary and medically directed team. The Hospice team consists of different disciplines, including a physician, a nurse, a home health aide, a social worker, a spiritual counselor, and a volunteer. The team manages overall patient care and perform periodic in home visits. Together, they develop a comprehensive care plan that is patient-specific, that addresses the medical, physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of patients and their family members. The number of the visits that patients will receive from members of the Hospice Interdisciplinary team will vary depending on the specific needs of the patient, changes in condition, and the hospice ‘Level of Care’.

Physicians

Our physicians lead the hospice care team, helping develop a detailed plan that caters to each patient’s unique needs. All of our physicians possess extensive professional training and have great experience with hospice care. Together with the patient’s primary care doctor, the hospice physician will monitor the patient’s overall health and condition. The hospice physician also can prescribe medication that can help alleviate a patient’s symptoms and enhance their level of comfort. Our physician’s top priority is to provide phenomenal care that takes into account the needs of the patient and their family. Throughout every step of the way, our physicians remain involved and committed to ensuring each and every patient is treated with the utmost care

Nurses

Our nurses perform a large part of the visits that patients receive during hospice care. As a result, our nurses work tirelessly to establish close relationships with the patient and their family to help make sure that every aspect of hospice care gets taken care of. Their duties include monitoring changes in patients’ condition, symptoms, and pain levels. In addition, they review medication, assist caregivers, and more generally, ensure that all the needs of the patient and their family are met. The visiting nurse also reports and works with the physicians to ensure medications remain up to date and properly managed. Families can have peace of mind in knowing that their loved one is being taken care of by a caring nurse who will do everything in their power to keep them as comfortable as possible.

Home Health Aides

Home health aides provide support in the personal care of patients, more specifically focusing on overall hygiene and assistance with activities such as bathing, feeding, shaving, walking, and so on. Our home health aides are very sensitive to the privacy, needs, and wants of each and every patient. They assist with all hygiene needs with the utmost courtesy to make the process of assisting with each of these tasks as comfortable as possible. By helping a patient to maintain his or her appearance by shaving, making sure they are still mobile and walking, and more generally keeping them feeling more like themselves, home health aids can be great support in easing a patient’s stress during such a difficult time.

Social Workers

Hospice social workers focus on providing emotional and psychological support through counseling. They assist by providing community resources, explaining insurance benefits, facility placement, advanced directives, end of life planning, funeral arrangements, and finally, assisting with bereavement and grief support. Our social workers remain free of judgment and instead listen to patients’ feelings and thoughts without any critical outlook. They work most efficiently helping patients to sort through what they are going through physically and emotionally and give advice with genuine candor. They can also help to ease any financial stress or concerns by providing a patient and their families with plentiful resources regarding insurance benefits and funeral costs.

Spiritual Counselors

Spiritual counselors provide spiritual and emotional support to patients and families members. They ensure that patients have the spiritual support that they need and provide a bridge between the patient and the religious community. With Five Star’s extremely diverse team of individuals, we can provide a spiritual guide catered to each patient’s religion or belief system. They also may assist with the emotions of the families, their system of grief, and religious funeral ceremonies. Of course, this is all dependent on the personal case. Not all patients may desire a spiritual counselor, and that is understandable. Each case is treated with respect to the patient’s individual beliefs, and if having a spiritual counselor does not fit in with the patient’s chosen lifestyle, in no way will it be forced upon them.

Volunteers

Hospice volunteers assist patients and family members by providing companionship to patients, and may also provide assistance in instances where the family may need a brief respite to run errands or tend to other appointments. Our volunteers are trained to provide and maintain a sense of community and personalized care by being inclusive to the patient’s needs and desires. They can help lift a patient’s spirits and make sure that a patient never feels lonely. We do our best to provide volunteers that have the same cultural background as patients to ensure there are open lines of communication. Like spiritual counselors, volunteers are not a requisite in hospice care, but do provide emotional and social support in places it is needed most.

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