How do we do it?

Hospice care revolves around the concept of a team effort to care for the whole patient, not just physically, but emotionally and spiritually as well. Working with the patient’s own physician, Judith Karman Hospice devises an individualized plan of care tailored to provide the highest quality of life for each patient. Registered nurses, licensed practical nurses and certified home health aides regularly visit patients in their homes (or nursing home) and a nurse is on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week to respond to unscheduled urgent needs. Nutritional counseling, speech pathology, occupational therapy, physical therapy and psychological counseling are all provided when necessary.

To help with both the patient’s and the family’s emotional needs, a licensed social worker and family services coordinator work to connect the family with available community resources, including the hospice’s highly trained volunteers, if the family desires. When the family services coordinator or other staff makes a referral, the volunteer manager works to match the best interests of the family. Volunteers can be requested on a one-time or routine basis doing anything from sitting and chatting with the patient to light housekeeping. And finally, the Judith Karman Hospice bereavement coordinator counsels both the patient and the family through the grieving process from intake, if necessary, through 13 months after the patient’s death.

            This team oriented approach to care means that from the moment the patient signs on for hospice care, he and his family are free to concentrate on the business of living. Judith Karman Hospice provides all medications and care related to the terminal diagnosis, as well as whatever medical equipment is necessary to ensure the patient’s comfort.