Nursefriendly.com: End-Of-Life-Programs

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Hospice Under Medicare | Accepting Hospice Under Medicare | Caring.com

Hospice is a type of care that focuses on relieving pain and other suffering for patients nearing the end of life. To qualify for Medicare-covered hospice care, a patient's treating physician must certify that the patient's illness is likely to be terminal within six months. Once hospice care is begun, there's no more medical treatment for the terminal illness itself.
Given this requirement of a prognosis of only six months to live, and the ending of treatment for the terminal disease, many people resist hospice because it seems like "choosing to die." Many people also fear hospice because they believe that all medical care will end. For several reasons, though, neither one of these fears should stop someone from choosing hospice care.
In the first place, the decision to choose hospice isn't final. If a patient's condition stabilizes or improves, he or she can give up hospice and return to regular Medicare coverage. All it takes is to have a change of mind about giving up treatment, or a doctor's advice to try a new treatment. Or for some reason the patient might not like hospice care and prefer to return to regular Medicare coverage. Patients don't have to give Medicare or the hospice provider a reason -- they can end hospice and return to regular Medicare coverage at any time.

via caring.com

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Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Helping patients experience death, PhillyBurbs.com:

A handful of local hospitals recently started volunteer programs that train ordinary people to sit with those who are alone and dying.

Angelo DeLorenzo spends many nights watching people as they die.

Occasionally, the person wants to talk, sometimes through the night. Often, the patient is unconscious, but DeLorenzo reads to him or her, plays the harp or sits quietly and prays.

Everyone deserves a good death, DeLorenzo believes. No one should die without someone there to hold a hand, whisper reassuring words and make sure the person is comfortable.

So DeLorenzo stays with these dying patients at St. Mary Medical Center, where he frequently takes the overnight shift. The Middletown hospital is one of a handful in the area that have started end-of-life programs, where ordinary people such as DeLorenzo, a chaplain intern, are trained to provide comfort care for people who have no close family available.

"No One Dies Alone" - the name of the program at St. Mary - originated at an Oregon hospital in 2001. It has since spread around the world. More than 1,100 hospitals and hospices have requested copies of the program's manual, said Carleen McCornack, coordinator of the mission center of Sacred Heart Medical Center in Eugene, where the program started.

via phillyburbs.com

These types of programs will go along way towards easing patients and family members into accepting the death of a loved one.

To read the complete article click on the above link:
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