Hospice Services
Hospice services are available to persons who can no longer benefit from curative treatment; the typical hospice patient has a life expectancy of six months or less. Most receive care at home. Services are provided by a team of trained professionals - physicians, nurses, social workers, counselors, chaplains, therapists, aides and volunteers - who provide medical care and support services not only to the patient, but to the patient's family and loved ones as well. The primary physician usually refers the patient to hospice services. Family, friends, clergy, or health professionals can also make referrals.
How Hospice Differs From Other Types Of Healthcare
Hospice offers palliative, rather than curative treatment.
Under the direction of a physician, hospice uses sophisticated methods of pain and symptom control that enable the patient to live as fully and comfortably as possible.
Hospice treats the person, not the disease.
The interdisciplinary hospice team is made up of professionals who address the medical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual needs of the patient and loved ones.
Hospice emphasizes quality, rather than length of life.
Hospice neither hastens nor postpones death: it affirms life and regards dying as a normal process. The hospice movement stresses human values that go beyond the physical needs of the patient.
Hospice considers the entire family, not just the patient, the "unit of care."
Patients and their loved ones are included in the decision making process, and bereavement counseling is provided to the family after the death of their loved one.
Hospice offers help and support to the patient and family 24-hours a day, seven-days a week.
For hospice patients and their loved ones, help is just a phone call away. Patients routinely receive periodic in-home services of a nurse, home health aide, social worker, chaplain, volunteer and other members of the hospice interdisciplinary team
- Nursing services on an intermittent basis
- Physician services
- Drugs, including outpatient drugs for pain relief and symptom management that are directly related to the terminal diagnosis
- Physical, Occupational, and Speech-Language therapy
- Home health aide and homemaker services
- Medical supplies and appliances
- Short-term inpatient care, including respite care
- Medical social services
- Spiritual, dietary, and other counseling
- Continuous care at home during periods of crisis
- Trained volunteers
- Bereavement services
speech therapy | home health | social worker | hospice services
