Family In The News

Family Centered Hospice Hosts Recognition Celebration for National Hospice Volunteer Week

April 27 – May 3, 2008 is National Volunteer Week and organizations across the country are celebrating the contributions of dedicated volunteers who embody caring and help make life better for others.  Family Centered Hospice is honoring hospices volunteers, who bring compassion and support to the lives of those facing a life-limiting illness.

Recent research conducted by the Corporation for National & Community Service demonstrates that volunteering leads to better health and that older volunteers are the most likely to receive physical and mental health benefits from their volunteer activities.

Hospice volunteers are integral members of the dedicated team of professionals who provide hospice services across our nation.   Hospice volunteers bring companionship to people in the final months and weeks of life, respite to families and caregivers, and support in administrative efforts by hospice organizations.

According to the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization, approximately 400,000 people actively volunteer in the nation’s over 4,100 hospice organizations annually providing more than 16 million hours of service annually.

At Family Centered Hospice, more than 50 volunteers provided more than 2,300 hours during the 2007 calendar year to help care for patients and families that select hospice care in the 12 county area served by the hospice organization.  Many people become hospice volunteers after experiencing first hand the compassionate care hospice provided to a dying loved one.

It is federally mandated, under Medicare, that five percent of all patient care hours be provided by trained volunteers.  In fact, volunteers provide significantly more than this amount of patient care support.

“Hospice volunteers play an indispensable role in enabling our hospice to offer the best care possible for patients living with life-limiting illness, their families and caregivers.  By sharing their time, energy and expertise, our volunteers bring compassion and caring to the lives of those in need,” commented Sandy Cashman, BSN, MBA, Director of Hospice, Family Centered Hospice.  “We are grateful to our volunteers during National Volunteer week and every week, and pleased that this celebration of volunteering allows us to remind everyone that hospice is about how you live.”

To salute those individuals who are an integral part of the hospice team, Family Centered Hospice will host a recognition luncheon and celebration on  April 22 in Bloomingdale, IL.  This event will recognize the special contributions of hospice volunteers and publicly thank those who give so much to others throughout the year.

To learn more about this event, or to become a hospice volunteer, please contact Annette Schafer at 630.330.3346.

Meeting a Hospice Patient’s Distinct Care Needs: The Four Levels of Care

Considered to be the optimum model for quality, compassionate care for people facing a life-limiting illness or injury, hospice involves a team-oriented approach to expert medical care, pain management, and emotional and spiritual support expressly tailored to a patient's needs and wishes. Support is provided to the patient's loved ones as well.  At the center of hospice care is the belief that each of us has the right to die pain-free and with dignity, and that our families will receive the necessary support to allow us to do so.
Hospice focuses on caring, not curing. Care can be provided in the patient's home, or in freestanding hospice centers, hospitals, or nursing homes, as well as in other long-term care facilities.

More than 90% of hospices in the United States are certified by Medicare. Medicare defines what is considered to be core services, which many hospices surpass by offering other valued-added voluntary, community-based activities.

The Medicare Hospice Benefit, initiated in 1983, is covered under Medicare Part A (hospital insurance). Medicare beneficiaries who choose hospice care receive a full spectrum of non-curative medical and support services for their terminal illness. Hospice care also supports the family and loved ones of the patient through a variety of additional Medicare-sanctioned benefits offered by a team of health care professionals.

The Medicare Hospice Benefit covers services provided by an interdisciplinary hospice team, such as:

• Managing the patient’s pain and symptoms;
• Assisting the patient with the emotional and psychosocial and spiritual aspects of dying;
• Providing needed drugs, medical supplies, and equipment;
• Coaching the family on how to care for the patient;
• Delivering special services like speech and physical therapy when needed;
• Making short-term inpatient care available when pain or symptoms become too difficult to manage at home, or the caregiver needs respite time; and
• Providing bereavement care and counseling to surviving family and friends.

Because different patients require different intensities of care during the course of their disease, the Medicare Hospice Benefit offers patients four levels of care: Routine Home Care, Continuous Care, Inpatient Respite Care, and General Inpatient Care. Hospices respond by offering the category of care that meets the individual patient's needs at a particular point in time - in the location that is most appropriate and comfortable.

Understanding the four levels of care is important to understanding what services a patient and the family is entitled to receive. When a patient enters hospice, the patient's condition must be evaluated on a frequent and regular basis by a registered nurse, who in consultation with the attending physician, will prepare an initial "Plan of Care.

If a patient chooses to stay at home and there is no current "crisis" due to uncontrolled symptoms or other situations, the patient is placed at the "routine home care" level of care. Routine home care services include periodic visits by the registered nurse, home health aides, social workers, volunteers and counselors as required by the patient and family..  About 95% of care provided in hospice is at the routine home care level.

Respite care is a level of service offered to give the primary caregiver a relief from the responsibilities of providing care.   Respite care is a period of up to five days where a qualified professional will take care of the patient’s needs. This care is usually given in the nursing home setting.

If pain or symptoms cannot be controlled at home, the patient might be taken to a hospital or other inpatient care center. When the symptoms are under control, the patient can return home.

Continuous Care, often the least known and understood of the four levels of care, is available if the patient is having symptoms which are "out of control." This standard of care applies whether a patient resides in his own home in the community, a foster care home, assisted living facility, apartment or even a nursing home.

Types of symptoms that might require continuous nursing care at home include uncontrolled pain, terminal restlessness or agitation, acute respiratory distress, among many other symptoms. 

Continuous care may be provided only during a period of crisis.  A period of crisis is a period in which a patient requires continuous care which is primarily nursing care to achieve management of acute medical symptoms.  If a patient’s caregiver is unwilling or unable to continue providing skilled care, this may precipitate a period of crisis because the skills of a nurse may be required to replace the services that had been provided by the caregiver.  This type of care can also be given when a patient is in a long term care facility.

The hospice must provide a minimum of eight hours of nursing care during a 24 – hour day which begins and ends at midnight.  The hours of care do not need to be continuous: four hours could occur in the morning, and four in the afternoon, but a need for an aggregate of eight hours of primarily nursing care is required.  At least half of the nursing care hours must be provided by either a registered nurse (RN) or licensed practical nurse (LPN).   Homemakers or home health aide services may be provided to supplement nursing care.

Further information about hospice care and the levels of care are available by calling Family Centered Hospice toll free at 866.320.3300.

Hospice Care Saves Medicare an Average of $2,309 per Hospice User, New Study Shows

Findings of a major new study of hospice care in America show that hospice services save money for Medicare and bring quality care to patients with life-limiting illness and their families. The new study from Duke University appears in the October 2007 issue of the professional journal "Social Science & Medicine." The study reinforces what hospice professionals have long known according to Family Centered Hospice

Study highlights

• Hospice reduced Medicare costs by an average of $2,309 per hospice patient.
• Use of hospice decreased Medicare expenditures for cancer patients until the 233rd day of care and until the 153rd day of care for non-cancer patients.
• Increasing length of hospice use by just three days would increase savings due to hospice by nearly 10 percent, from around $2,300 to $2,500 per hospice user.
• Medicare costs would be reduced for seven out of ten hospice recipients if hospice has been used for a longer period of time the study found.

"Hospice helps people live with dignity, comfort, and compassion and brings needed support to family caregivers - to know definitively that it provides a cost savings to Medicare is an additional benefit," said Debra Muffoletto, Administrator, Family Centered Hospice, headquartered in Addison, IL.

"Given that hospice has been widely demonstrated to improve quality of life of patients and families...the Medicare program appears to have a rare situation whereby something that improves quality of life also appears to reduce costs," writes lead author Don H. Taylor, Jr., assistant professor of public policy at Duke's Sanford Institute of Public Policy.

The National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization reports that 1.3 million patients received hospice care across the US in 2006. Approximately 35 percent of all deaths in the US were under the care of a hospice program. Locally, in a 12- county area, Family Centered Hospice provides care for hundreds of patients a year.

Hospice is not a place but a philosophy of care that provides pain management, symptom control, psychosocial support, and spiritual care to patients and their families.

This study is a landmark independent research effort, not only because it shows cost savings for hospice utilization, but because it also addresses research flaws and questionable analyses in previous hospice cost studies.

Laning appointed Clinical Coordinator at Family Home Health

Susan LaValle, Clinical Director, Family Home Health and Family Centered Hospice Services, Inc., today announced the appointment of Susan K Laning, RN, WCC, to Clinical Coordinator, Home Care, for the company. In this position, Laning will have responsibility for coordination of home health services, as well as coordination of staffing and staff education.

“We are pleased that Susan has joined our team of health care professionals,” stated Ms. LaValle.. “Her extensive expertise in implementing methods for delivering high quality service and her in-depth knowledge with respect to regulatory standards and ensuring patient satisfaction is essential to our goal to stay a leader in serving patients and their families in our 12 county market area.”

Laning, who lives in West Chicago, received a nursing degree from the College of DuPage, Glen Ellyn, IL.

Prior to joining Family, Laning served as clinical education coordinator at Elmhurst Memorial Home Health, Hospice and DME, Elmhurst, IL.

Family Home Health Services, Inc. is Named A Top National Performer in the 2006 HomeCare Elite Awards

Family was one of the select Medicare Certified Home Health agencies whose performance measures were among the top 25% in the nation. Family’s exemplary Performance Measures were noted in the areas of: Quality, Improvement and Financial performance.

“We applaud the success of all the providers named to the 2006 HomeCare Elite,” said Bill Bassett, Senior Director of Marketing Strategy at OCS, Inc., a healthcare information company with the nation’s largest and most comprehensive set of homecare measures.

“Being noted as one of the top performers in the nation in this very competitive environment shows that Family Home Health Services, Inc. is dedicated to quality and performance,” said Tonya Nevin, Executive Publisher of Decision Health. “As performance improvement, both clinical and financial, continues to be a critical metric for home care agencies, it’s wonderful that we have an award that recognizes our industry’s highest achievers,” “We congratulate Family Home Health Services, Inc. on being one of the top 25% best performing home care agencies in the country.”

As the healthcare arena evolves to offer new challenges as well as new opportunities to excel in quality service, Family Home Health Services will strive to continue providing our customers with first-rate homecare services.