The Importance Of A Hospice Care Plan
What is a Hospice Care Plan?
Hospice care, also called palliative care or end-of-life care is special care designed to provide compassion and support to individuals who are in the final phases of the aging process or final stages of a terminal illness. Hospice care focuses on relieving and preventing the suffering of patients and seeks to enable patients to spend their last days with dignity in as much comfort as possible. But like a will, a hospice plan of care should be established so the person in hospice receives the kind of care and treatment they prefer.
Hospice Care provides:
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Support for the patient and the family
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Relief to the patient from pain and symptoms
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Help for family members and loved ones who want to stay close to the dying patient
Most hospice patients are in their last 6 months of life. Hospice care does not make death come faster, or put off death.
What Hospice Care Offers:
Hospice care is given by a team. This team may include doctors, nurses, social workers, counselors, aides, clergy, and therapists. The team works together to give the patient and family comfort and support. The hospice team is always available.
Hospice care treats the mind, body, and spirit.
Services may include:
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Control of pain
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Treatment of symptoms (such as shortness of breath, constipation, or anxiety)
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Spiritual care that meets your needs
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Giving the family a break (called respite care)
The hospice team is trained to help the patient and family with the following:
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What to expect
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Cope with loneliness and fear
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Share feelings
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Bereavement care (helping the family cope after the death)
The person in charge of care is called the primary care giver. This may be a spouse, life partner, family member, or friend. In some settings the hospice team will teach the primary care giver how to care for the patient. Caring could include turning the patient in bed, and feeding, bathing, and giving the patient medicine. The primary care giver will also be taught about signs to look for, so he or she knows when to call the hospice team for help or advice.
The Hospice Plan of Care
It’s recommended to start the conversation about hospice care as early as possible. Although it’s generally said to apply in the last six months of life, creating a personalized hospice care plan can help reduce stress and improve quality of life much earlier.
With a written hospice care plan, patients, caregivers, and families can be made aware of the options and understand what’s likely to happen, what the costs will be (if any- hospice is widely covered by Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurance programs), and what help will be available.
Having a plan reduces uncertainty and fear for patients and caregivers alike, and often people are only aware of a small fraction of the total support hospice care can offer. The process of making a hospice care plan also provides a chance for the patient’s voice to be heard.
Each hospice must develop an individualized written plan of care for each patient. The plan of care must reflect patient and family goals and interventions based on the problems identified in the initial, comprehensive, and updated comprehensive assessments. The plan of care must include all services necessary for the palliation and management of the terminal illness and related conditions.
Once options are discussed and the hospice care plan is written, it can provide an important framework for helping family members talk through difficult subjects and clear the air, and ensure the hospice care team knows exactly what care the patient wishes.
BLOG Date: Thursday, June 25, 2015
Writer: Ryan Allen