 | Karen Moore is Director of Nursing for Faith Home Health and Hospice LLC. Faith Home Health and Hospice provides care for patients throughout all stages of life, wherever they consider their home. Karen graduated from Wichita State University with a BSN in nursing. Karen has worked in a variety of nursing settings including home health, acute care hospice and sub-acute care. You can contact our office at 316-618-6800. |
Hospice
2006-08-01 11:53:00
What is a Hospice, what do they do?
QUESTION: What Does Hospice Really Do?
ANSWER: Maybe a better question should be when should I choose hospice? Hospice is a choice for those individuals who care about the quality of their lives and those they are leaving behind. In our modern age of technology we can provide cutting edge treatments and disease management for many conditions that not long ago would have gone untreated and resulted in a shorter life expectancy. Undoubtedly, the progress in modern medicine has lengthened and improved the quality of life. However, sometimes the quality of life remaining is compromised of aggressive and futile treatments that will not change the end result of the disease, or enhance the quality of life. For some people, the right choice may be to ask their physician: what if I choose to do nothing more about my disease? What if I am tired of spending all of my time and energy focusing on my disease? What will happen if I don’t have all these procedures and tests and just focus on the quality of the time I have left? Hospice empowers patients and their caregivers with these choices. Many patients and families do not understand that they are the ones who can, and should, be leading the discussion of what is important to them at the end of their life.The purpose of Hospice is to enhance the quality of life by providing symptom management, education, emotional, physical and spiritual support for both the patient and their families during the final phase of life. For many patients and their families Hospice provides the relief in knowing that they can remain in the comfort of familiar surroundings with the care of their loved ones until the time of death. This is accomplished with the help of the Hospice team in consultation with your physician. The hospice team includes the hospice medical directors, social workers, chaplains, home health aides and volunteers. The team will help the patient and their families develop a plan that will allow the patient to have the freedom to live as independently as possible, manage the symptoms of their illness and greatly increase the quality of their life. After the loss of a loved one, members of the hospice team continue to keep in contact with the family for many, many months to ensure that they are dealing with the loss in a healthy and appropriate way. Hospice is a benefit covered by most insurance companies, including Medicare and Medicaid. At Faith Hospice our staff of dedicated team members will work with you to ensure that both choice and quality of life are respected. We work with each individual to develop a plan to enhance the time remaining and to give peace of mind to both the individual and their family. If you have questions or need to discuss the options regarding hospice care, please feel free to call our office at 316-618-6800. Our staff will be happy to answer your questions and explain our hospice program to you.
