Brookdale Hospice Case Study

While patients usually pay out-of-pocket for any services not covered by insurance (known as a co-payment), hospice services are generally provided without charge in the event of limited or nonexistent financial resources. This is done so using funds raised from community donations and charitable foundations. (Robinson, Segall. 2011)

Caring Hospice is a company that will provide nursing care to patients that are terminally ill. The ultimate goal is to insure the patient is kept as comfortable as possible while maintaining dignity during the dying process. This company will send registered nurses to the patient’s home for routine physical assessments, medication teaching and administration, education about terminal diseases and the dying process. The nursing staff will also create and maintain appropriate plans of care for the multi-disciplinary team to provide holistic care to the patient.

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—Two caps 1) Number of days of inpatient care are furnished is limited to not more than 20 percent of total patient care days, *The Inpatient Cap*. 2) Aggregate payment amount received in Medicare payments for services provided in the cap year is limited to the cap amount times the number of Medicare patients served, *Aggregate Cap*. There are two different methods for counting the number of Medicare patients; Proportional Method and Streamlined Method.

A survey was conducted in 2000 on more than 9,000 patients discharged from more than 2,000 hospices on the services they received (Carlson, 2007). It revealed that 22% of them received five major palliative care services, which varied among the hospices. These palliative care services were nursing care, physician care, medication management, psychological care, and caregiver support. Approximately 14% of the hospices provided all five services and 33% provided only one or two services. Only 59% of these patients received medication management services. These included administering medication, dispensing correct dosages, and setting and following dosage schedule.

Hospice is a philosophy of care. It treats the person rather than the disease and focuses on quality of life. It surrounds the patient and family with a team consisting of professionals who not only address physical distress, but emotional and spiritual issues as well. Hospice care is patient-centered because the needs of the patient and family drive the activities of the hospice team.

Many terminally-ill patients give up hope when treatments are no longer available to help them and hospice care is given to them as an option. However, hospice care has proven itself to provide the best quality care for the last six months of the dying. The purpose of hospice is to provide the best care for terminally-ill patients at the end stage of their lives. Hospice offer services to support too many aspects a patient’s life such as medical, legal, spiritual care. Hospice includes art therapists, music therapists, and certified chaplains on the palliative team.

The purpose of hospice is to effectively provide palliative care to terminally ill patients and their families, it is available to any age, religion or race. According to the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization, “hospice provides expert medical care, pain management, and emotional and spiritual support expressly tailored to the patient’s needs and wishes Support is provided to the patient’s loved ones as well” (NHPCO, 2015). In

Our experienced staff members know exactly what it takes to give patients the dignity that they deserve. Based in a home setting, our hospice care helps to manage illnesses and support the patient. Throughout the process, we help with the spiritual, physical and emotional needs of the individual. As a result,

The doctors were pretty sure that Pierre had less than 6 months to live, so he fell well within the guidelines for hospice coverage. Should hospice coverage be limited to those with 6 months or less to live, or should other be covered? 6 months is a random figure and I think that the covering other could help families deal with hospice care a little better; it would give them a better understanding of what hospice-type services is entailed. It also could be too expensive for covering others and how can you know for sure if 6 months is suitable.

Looking at United Hospice of Rockland’s, UHR, digital face, I believe that their website and Facebook are their most prominent pieces. The time when a family decides that hospice care is the best option for their loved one to receive the end of life quality care that they deserve, the process should be as calm and easy as possible. UHR’s website is one that provides family members with the resources they need to make the transition to hospice care easy. What they do nicely, I believe is that while fundraising is an essential part of their organization, it is not something that current or recently deceased patient family members need to be concerned with at the moment. While listed on the main page, it is not forced upon people, its as easily

My experience as a social work student at Seasons Hospice has been very interesting. It started off a little bumpy but soon progressed into an everlasting life experience and opportunity. My thought process from when I entered into seasons and now exiting Seasons if tremendously different from what I was expecting.

For this assignment I chose three studies from the ESC onLine research section. One of the studies deals with outcomes from being at home at the end of life; the other explores how brain scans can shed light on loss of money skills, and the final study looks at exercise and the role it plays in the risk of getting Alzheimer’s.

While sadness plays a big role in hospice…it is also true that there is happiness, positive reflection as well as wisdom. This month we want to recognize our two volunteers Connie and Paul Steber who have been volunteers for Hospice since June and considered it a true blessing to share the stories and experiences of patients who are living through a very emotional and difficult time. They are honored to be making a difference and to be able to share the stories of the patients like James Ellis best known as the Coach, who enjoys their company but most of all watching a football game, especially if his favorite team is on the winning end. The Stabers enjoy conversing with James and listening to his stories. There are also times when James and