Throughout the month of November, Our Lady of Peace Hospice and Home Health Care is
joining organizations across the nation in hosting community activities recognizing National Hospice and Palliative Care Month (HAPCM). This year’s HAPCM theme is “Courageous Conversations.”
“National Hospice and Palliative Care Month provides an opportunity for patients, providers, and community members alike to engage in advance care planning and other important discussions about the care they wish to receive when facing a serious illness before the time of crisis,” said Ben Marcantonio, COO and interim CEO of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO). We believe everyone deserves a good death, and the way to get there is through courageous conversations.”
For more than 40 years, hospice has helped provide interdisciplinary, supportive care to millions of people, allowing them to spend their final months wherever they call home and surrounded by their loved ones. Hospice teams craft plans of care that ensure pain management, therapies, and treatments all center on the patients’ and their loved ones’ goals and wishes. Hospice care also provides emotional support and advice to help family members become confident caregivers and adjust to the future with grief support for up to a year.
Each year, over one million Medicare beneficiaries receive care from hospices across the United States. When a patient is not eligible for hospice care, they may benefit from community-based palliative care, often offered by hospice providers. Palliative care is patient and family-centered care that optimizes quality of life by anticipating, preventing, and treating suffering. Palliative care throughout the continuum of illness also involves addressing physical, intellectual, emotional, social, and spiritual needs and facilitates patient autonomy through access to information and choice.
“For patients going back and forth between home and the hospital, palliative care can bring peace and calm to a chaotic situation, so want to give you the information you need to determine if palliative care is right for you and your family,” says Nancy Larson, RN, CHPN, Hospice and Home Health Care Director of Nursing. “And as experts in end-of-life care, we want to be open, honest, and help you prepare to enter hospice within 24-hours because it can sometimes be necessary.”
Our Lady of Peace is happy to provide more information on hospice and palliative care. Please email us at info@ourladyofpeacemn.org or call us at 651-789-5031.
Advance care planning information and resources are available from the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO) at CaringInfo.org