The Service We Offer:
What Is Hospice and Palliative Care?
Hospice Care
Hospice is a specialized type of care with a compassionate approach for those facing a life-limiting illness, as well as their families. Hospice care treats the whole person, with a focus on improving the quality of life that remains, rather than trying to cure the disease.
The hospice concept affirms life; it does not hasten nor postpone death. The goal is to manage a patient’s pain and symptoms so that they may live each day as comfortably and fully as possible.
Through a team-oriented approach, hospice provides patients with expert medical care, pain management, and symptom relief. In addition, hospice teams provide emotional, spiritual, psychosocial, and practical support for both patients and families with questions or concerns at the end of life. The hospice care team is available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
Hospice Services Include:
- Medication for Pain Control and Symptom Management: While in hospice care, the priority shifts from trying to cure a condition to managing pain and other symptoms caused by the disease or treatments. A terminal diagnosis often brings with it a great deal of discomfort that the right medication can help alleviate.
- Medical Supplies and Equipment: Providing a patient with the supplies and equipment needed to be comfortable is quite common for those receiving hospice care. This may include the basics, like a bed, oxygen and wheelchair to more complex equipment like special mattresses to reduce skin breakdown.
- Support With Daily Activities and Personal Care: At Heart to Heart Hospice, we ensure that our patients have the support they need with their activities of daily living, to help them have the best quality of life possible. It’s easy to forget that a terminal illness doesn’t have to control your whole day. While medical needs can indeed take time and limit what you can do, there is almost always something that can help give life to your days, time with family or capturing memories in our Memory Journal.
- Educating Families on Proper Care: At Heart to Heart Hospice, a big part of our services is helping to educate families on how to care and support their loved ones. Most of the levels of care we offer the patient are provided in the place a patient calls home. It is therefore essential that those caregivers have the necessary skills to help them as needed.
- Grief and Bereavement Support: Heart to Heart Hospice also offers bereavement services and counseling for families dealing with grief. A terminal illness doesn’t only impact the patient. Their loved ones also can receive aid during times of grief for up to 13 months after a loss.
- Helping With General End-of-Life Needs: The caregivers and loved ones receiving hospice care will oftentimes have questions and concerns that need to be addressed before end of life. A good hospice service does its best to address those concerns. Meeting the emotional, spiritual, and practical needs of the patient and their family is essential to easing the burden of a terminal illness. With great empathy and effort, the burden of passing on can be greatly diminished for a patient by making their final weeks or days much easier with the help of a hospice service.
- Providing Support and Companionship: Part of quality hospice care is providing the patient with someone they can talk to and feel supported by. The trained, professional social worker, chaplain and bereavement coordinators help both patients and their families. Hospice also provides companionship with volunteers that help listen or just sit with a patient.
Palliative Care
Palliative care is a medical specialty centered on managing the physical and emotional impact of serious illness. It focuses on effective communication, coordination of care, and relief from pain, stress, and other debilitating symptoms.
It differs from hospice care in that palliative care can be given at any time during a patient’s illness. Since it is not dependent on the prognosis, palliative care can be given while still pursuing a cure.
Qualifying for Hospice Care
First, patients must meet certain qualifications to be eligible for hospice care. This includes:
- Two physicians certify a patient has a life expectancy of six months or less.
- The patient accepts comfort care (palliative care) instead of care to cure the illness.
Hospice benefits, from comfort care to needed equipment, are covered by Medicare, Medicaid, VA and many private insurance companies. Read more on hospice eligibility and coverage.
What Hospice is Not
Hospice offers many beneficial services, but does not provide around-the-clock nursing care or caregiving for a patient. A range of hospice professionals, from nurses to aides to spiritual care coordinators to social workers, visit patients regularly, monitor changes, provide care and equip in-home caregivers. For a medical crisis or other patient needs, read about the different levels of care during hospice.
Hospice is not a path to a cure, but a patient-centered approach to dealing with pain and symptoms through palliative (or comfort) care, as well as emotional and psychosocial issues, in the final months of a patient’s life. Hospice is not a location, such as a hospital or hospice care facility. Hospice takes place wherever the patient calls home, whether it’s a private residence, nursing home or other residential facility. One common goal of hospice is to fulfill a patient’s desire to die at home, surrounded by the people and things they love. Read more Myths and Facts About Hospice.
Heart to Heart Hospice Care Services
The Heart to Heart Hospice team focuses on enhancing the quality of life for patients with a life-limiting illness and their loved ones by developing a personalized care plan that meets each patient’s needs and wishes. We provide compassionate care for patients with a wide range of life-limiting illnesses, including, but not limited to:
- Cancer
- Heart disease
- Stroke and Coma
- Lung disease
- Kidney disease
- Liver disease
- Multiple sclerosis
- ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease)
- Alzheimer’s disease
- Dementia
- Parkinson’s
- HIV and AIDS
Hospice Home Care Services
Hospice is a service or philosophy of care that is provided in the place the patient calls home. In addition to a private residence, this includes nursing homes and residential facilities. Hospice patients may also receive services at a contracted inpatient facility or hospital, and short-term inpatient care may be provided to help manage pain and control symptoms when needed.
Receiving comprehensive care in the environment where they feel most comfortable will ensure the patient’s dignity is well-preserved. The hospice care team is available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and will make regular, scheduled visits to assess the patient and provide quality care for both the patient and their loved ones.
Caregiver Support
In addition to caring for the patient, Heart to Heart Hospice strives to provide excellent caregiver support. When the patient’s primary caregiver needs respite time as a relief from their responsibilities, the patient can go into short-term care. Emotional and spiritual support, as well as bereavement care and counseling, are offered to surviving family and friends for up to 13 months.
Regular Hospice Services
What Heart to Heart Hospice Does:
- We manage the patient’s pain and symptoms
- We provide needed medications, medical supplies, and medical equipment
- We maintain the patient’s comfort, including regular assessments and support for their loved ones
- We assist the patient with personal care and activities of daily living
- We instruct families on how to properly care for their loved one
- We deliver special services, such as speech and physical therapy, when needed
- Our spiritual care coordinators help patients and families with questions or concerns at the end of life
- Our volunteers to provide companionship and community resources to support patients and their families
- Our bereavement and counseling services help families deal with grief
Find a Heart to Heart Location Near You
Heart to Heart provides quality hospice care in metropolitan areas in Texas, Michigan, and Indiana, including Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Austin, Detroit, and Indianapolis, as well as in numerous small and rural communities throughout these states. If you think that hospice care might be right for you or your loved one, please contact one of our office locations near you so that we can set up an appointment to discuss our services and answer any questions you may have.
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