As we celebrate the roles of volunteers in hospice, it’s worth remembering VITAS’ origins as a volunteer organization.

Twenty-five years ago a small group of volunteers in Miami joined us to begin caring for an extraordinary woman, Emmy Philhour, who was dying of cancer. Emmy taught us much about caring for the terminally ill. The lessons we learned from Emmy are at the heart of VITAS and the Innovative Hospice Care® we provide today.

One thing we learned from Emmy—and those other patients we cared for in our first years—was the invaluable role that volunteers can play in providing compassionate end-of-life care. When we began to work with elected officials to create the first state and national hospice licensing laws, we specifically included volunteers in defining the interdisciplinary team of hospice caregivers.

When the hospice benefit was added to Medicare 21 years ago, we made sure that Medicare-certified hospice providers would ensure that at least 5 percent of their patient care would be provided by volunteers. It’s just one of dozens of things that make hospice unique in the wide world of healthcare.

From one Emmy Philhour, VITAS has grown to care for more than 50,000 patients each year. Using a conservative estimate that each of our patients has an average of 2.5 loved ones and caregivers involved in his or her life, that means that our hospice care touches an additional 110,000 people each year.

Many of these individuals benefit from the variety of assistance, support and companionship our volunteers provide. As they move through the grief process during their bereavement care, many of them realize that becoming a hospice volunteer is an appropriate way to honor their loved one and to support hospice by helping others through their own hospice journey.

We’d like to believe that the vast majority of our hospice patients have someone in their lives who would be a great hospice volunteer. We’ve also long believed that if we could somehow tap ALL of that energy, love, dedication and compassion we truly could transform how we care for the terminally ill in the United States today.

Our VITAS volunteers are at the vanguard of this change. We hope you take the time to salute their achievements and thank them for their love and support.

Hospice is a far richer and more profound experience because of the contributions of our volunteers. VITAS is better able to provide the kind of compassionate end-of-life care that Emmy Philhour was seeking, thanks to the contributions of our volunteers.