Benefits Of Hospice Care

Caring Hospice will be made up of an inter-disciplinary team that collaborate together to provide holistic, competent, and compassionate care for terminally ill patients and their families. The team will consist of the Medical Director, Patient Care Coordinator, Registered Nurse, Bereavement Coordinator, Social Worker, Chaplain, Certified Nurse Assistant, and Office Manager. Each team member will play a vital role in creating an effective care giving system.

Death is inevitable. It is one of the only certainties in life. Regardless, people are often uncomfortable discussing death. Nyatanga (2016) posits that the idea of no longer existing increases anxiety and emotional distress in relation to one’s mortality. Because of the difficulty in level of care for end-of-life patients, the patient and the family often need professional assistance for physical and emotional care. Many family caregivers are not professionally trained in medicine, and this is where hospice comes into play. Hospice aims to meet the holistic needs of both the patient and the patient’s family through treatment plans, education, and advocacy. There is a duality of care to the treatment provided by hospice staff in that they do not attempt to separate the patient’s care from the family’s care. Leming and Dickinson (2011) support that hospice, unlike other clinical fields, focuses on the patient and the family together instead of seeing the patient independent of the family. Many times in hospitals, the medical team focuses solely on the goal of returning the patient back to health in order for them to return to their normal lives. They do not take into account the psychological and spiritual components of the patient’s journey and the journey that the family must take as well. For treatment of the patient, Leming and Dickinson agree that hospice does not attempt to cure patients, and instead concentrates solely

The aim of a hospice is to improve the quality of life of the dying

Hospice is a process to end-of-life care and a kind of support facility for terminally ill patients. It provides comforting care, patient-centered care and related services. Comforting care relieves discomfort without improving the patient’s condition or curing his illness. Hospice is extended in a healthcare facility or at home. Its objective is to provide compassionate, emotional, and spiritual care for the dying patient.

The first hospice care was established in 1974. A hospice must make physician, nursing, drugs, and medical supply services available 24/7. It must have social workers and counseling services available to the patient and the family. Hospice also provides therapy and homemaker services when needed in order to be qualified under Medicare certification. Hospice is a combination of special services for terminal ill patients. Beside the medical service, hospice care also supports patients and family psychologically and spiritually to put their emotional suffering at ease. The psychological suffering can weight more than physical suffering. Many terminal ill patients cannot accept the bad news and living under emotional distress. Certified chaplains can work with people from different religions, they focus on the world-view of the patient and family. Using patient personal goal as the measurement, chaplains are the

Hospice care differs from other forms of medical care in that when the patient is dying, hospice works hard to relieve needless suffering. Normally, a patient is approved for hospice care if his or her life expectancy is 6 months or less. Hospice workers treat the person, rather than the disease. They aren't trying to cure a disease, but rather, they are trying to make the patient as comfortable as possible. Family and friends are encouraged to gather round and engage with the hospice patient. Many people have the misconception that the dying want to be left alone, but why would they want to be abandoned? Hospice is good for families, because they educate them on the dying process. Hospice care can be rendered in the family home, a nursing home, or in a hospital. Normally the majority of care is given by the family in the family home, or by nursing staff in a nursing home or hospital; however there are also private in-house hospice facilities-for those that may not have the family support. In the home, nursing home and hospitals the hospice workers come at specified times to work with the dying patient. They spend take vital signs, offer palliative care, and also offer support for family members. If you were to be admitted to hospice care you would find a great team of doctors, nurses, social workers, counselors, home healthcare assistants,

Hospice care is a model of care that focuses on relieving symptoms and supporting patients with a life expectancy of six months or less (Altshuler, 2013). For most nurses, caring for a dying elder (individual aged 65 years and above) is a discrete, time-limited experience that begins with first contact, often in a hospital, emergency room, or long term care facility, and ends with the death itself (Phillips & Reed, 2008).

Hospice care has not been around for very longs but it is one of the fastest growing medical fields in the country, with over 1.58 million patients being cared for in 2010 alone. Hospice is an important part of caring for terminally ill patients and helps the families and loved ones to grieve.

    At some point in a terminally ill person 's life, there comes a time when all treatment options have been exhausted, and patient comfort is the number one priority. During this process, hospice care comes into play to ensure quality of life of a patient. Pain management and supportive services are provided to anyone who is willing by Medicare, and other government assistance programs, for individuals and families that cannot afford private home care. These services are provided by a trained group of professionals, including; Doctors, Nurses, Counselors, Social workers, Physical therapists, Volunteers and Chaplains. There are different types of hospice

According to the American Cancer Society, one of the key differences between hospitalization and hospice care is that family and friends provide the majority of care. Hospice volunteers work as much with the family as with the patient. They may teach family members how to change dressings, remove a catheter, administer medicine, use bed pans, use a hospital bed, or assist in the dying in other ways. In a hospital setting, doctors, nurses and other healthcare specialists provide the majority of care. The hospice team of professional consists of a doctor, who serves as a medical director, nurses who provide direct care and case management, home health aides, social workers,

Hospice care main goal is to provide comfort then treating the person disease. Normally patients that live in hospice only have 6 months to live. Hospice also gives control to the patient in methods of their own death. Many patients will rather take a liquid substance that will slowly put them to rest, while others will have alternative plans on how they want to deal with their last stages of life. Hospice is also great at giving the patient many options when there trying to make decision on their death. Hospice overall wants to improve the quality of life and their finial wishes.

Hospice care is for people who are nearing the end of life. Hospice care services are provided by a team of health care professionals who maximize comfort for a terminally ill person by reducing pain and addressing physical, psychological, social and spiritual needs. To help families, hospice care also provides counseling, respite care and practical support. Hospice staff is on-call 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

End of life care is designed to provide the senior and their family relief from the symptoms, pain, and stress of a terminal condition during the last six months of expected life. The end of life team includes nurses, social workers, massage therapists, pharmacists, nutritionists, social workers, clergy, and so forth, who work with your loved one's primary care physician. In addition to pain management and comfort care, end of life care focuses on communication between the patient, the family, and the health care team.

(2007) research paper, the authors provided the reader with strong research that was done in two states: Hawaii and Colorado. This article objective is “to determine whether an in-home palliative care intervention for terminally ill patients can improve patient satisfaction, reduce medical care costs, and increase the portion of patients dying at home” (Brumley et al., 2007, p. 993). This study was a randomized, controlled study that included 298 out of 718 ill patients with same demographics. Before, 298 participants were chosen they had to have a diagnosis of cancer, COPD, or CHF and have less than 12 months of life expectancy. Also, these participants had to have a score of 70 on the palliative scale, where 0 was being dead and 100 being normal. One hundred and forty-five patients were in the intervention group that received customary and usual standard care, but they also received a greater quality of comfort measures, quality improvement of life, and they will get their symptoms managed unlike the usual care group. On the other hand, 152 patients were assigned to usual care group, where they only received “standard care to meet the needs of the patient. [...] patients were treated for conditions and symptoms when they presented them to attending physician” (Brumley et al., 2007, p. 995), the

Hospice is a component of palliative care. A person does not necessarily have to be dying in order to see a palliative care specialist. This is where the service is often underutilized in the hospital. In the 18 months I have been a nurse, I have cared for many patients with chronic illnesses who have dealt with symptoms that have severely impacted their quality of life. Most of the time, it seems as though the patient’s care providers are interested in treating the patient’s acute problems. My experience has been that the symptoms are often overlooked or are being treated in a manner that is to the dissatisfaction and discomfort of the patient.