High-Acuity Hospice, Wherever Home Is

Transitioning hospice-eligible patients to home can reduce length of stay, free up critical ED resources and reduce re-hospitalizations.
Get the Guide: Should I Admit, or Should I Call Hospice?

Every day, emergency departments face the challenge of caring for patients with advanced illness who cycle through repeated hospitalizations.

VITAS® Healthcare can help.

As a national leader, we have the resources and expertise to initiate or continue complex modalities for aggressive symptom management wherever a patient calls home.

Case Study:
Patient with Advanced Heart Failure

The Challenge
An 84-year-old nursing home resident with advanced heart failure (HF) was hospitalized three times over three months. One week after her last hospitalization, she returned to the emergency department with worsening CHF symptoms, lethargy and weight loss.
Goal
To stop repeated hospitalizations and improve patient’s quality of life.
Solution

In consultation with the ED physician, the patient and family agreed to a discharge plan for hospice care in the patient’s nursing home.

The interdisciplinary hospice care team created an individualized care plan and supported facility staff in managing the patient’s cardiac symptoms. Over the next five weeks, the patient received routine visits from a hospice aide for personal care, and a hospice nurse and respiratory therapist for symptom management. Symptom exacerbation required one instance of continuous care (24-hour Intensive Comfort Care®) at the patient’s bedside. A social worker and chaplain provided support to the patient’s family with funeral arrangements and anticipatory grief.

Result
The patient remained in the nursing home, avoided further ED visits and passed away peacefully six weeks later with family present.
 

CLINICIANS: SIGN UP FOR OUR EMAILS

Join our email list for webinars, hospice care news & more.