Patient Services
The benefit of hospice care is achieved when services can be initiated early enough to receive maximum support. When a referral is made to hospice, a team of qualified professionals will oversee the patient’s plan of care.
The Interdisciplinary Team consists of the following:
- Physician: The Hospice Medical Directors are responsible for developing a comprehensive medical care plan for each patient and ensuring that every member of the hospice team, caregivers, and the patient’s family, are knowledgeable of the care plan.
- Registered Nurse: The Hospice Nurses provide expert pain management and symptom control along with compassionate listening and counsel. They make several visits weekly to ensure that the patient’s goal of care is being met. Hospice and nurses promote the highest quality of life for the patient and family and are available 24/7 to help achieve this.
- Social Worker: The Hospice Social Workers are available to help patients and their loved ones or caregivers navigate the practical and emotional issues that arise during the end-of-life journey. They can assist with things like respite care, advance directives and funeral arrangements, to name a few.
- Chaplain: The Hospice Chaplains provide expert spiritual care and counseling. Regardless of religion, creed or culture, a Chaplain is available to help work through and manage the complex emotions people face at the end of life.
- Bereavement Coordinator: The Bereavement Coordinator provides grief support services before and after a patient’s death.
- Hospice Aide: The Hospice Aides assist a patient’s family member in caring for their terminally ill loved one by instructing them on how to go about performing basic healthcare routines. They are available to our patients several times a week to help with bathing, grooming, changing bed linens and more.
- Dietitian: The Dietitian assesses patients’ nutritional needs, offers nutritional counseling, and provides meals that reduce constipation and other side effects of medication and treatment.
- Volunteers: Hospice Volunteers provide many services for our patients and our hospice program. Some of the opportunities include visiting with patients and families, assisting with clerical work in the office, and providing pet therapy, music therapy, or massage therapy.
Four levels of care
Solace Hospice Care offers four broad types, or levels, of care as defined by the Medicare hospice benefit:
Routine Home Care
This is how we provide hospice care most often: in patients’ homes, long-term care facilities and nursing homes.
Inpatient Care
If a patient’s needs cannot be managed at home, special arrangements at other local facilities provide hospice care around the clock until the patient can return home.
Continuous care
When medically necessary, acute symptom management is provided at home or in another facility by hospice staff in shifts of up to 24 hours/day so the patient can avoid hospitalization.
Respite Care
Limited to up to five consecutive days, respite care provides a brief “respite” for the patient’s primary caregiver by admitting the homecare patient to a nursing facility without having to meet the “inpatient” pain and symptom management criteria.
Routine Home Care
This is how we provide hospice care most often: in patients’ homes, long-term care facilities and nursing homes.
Continuous care
When medically necessary, acute symptom management is provided at home or in another facility by hospice staff in shifts of up to 24 hours/day so the patient can avoid hospitalization.
Inpatient Care
If a patient’s needs cannot be managed at home, special arrangements at other local facilities provide hospice care around the clock until the patient can return home.
Respite Care
Limited to up to five consecutive days, respite care provides a brief “respite” for the patient’s primary caregiver by admitting the home care patient to an institutional setting without meeting the “inpatient” pain and symptom management criteria.