Options for hospice care expanding in Douglas County

Laura Kaiser, a hospice social worker with Visiting Nurses Association, center, visits with Almedia Lucille Simmons, 97, right, and Simmons' daughter, Barbara Wise, in March. Visiting Nurses Association leaders are hoping to expand their facilities in 2008.

The need for hospice services is growing.

The National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization estimates that 1.3 million patients received such services in 2006, a 162 percent increase in 10 years.

Amy Tucci, chief executive officer of the Hospice Foundation of America, cites a few reasons for such growth:

¢ More people are educated about hospice services and know they are available. Hospice services provide comfort and support to patients and their families when a life-limiting illness no longer responds to treatments.

¢ People are living longer.

¢ More hospices are able to care for people.

In fact, the Lawrence area has at least six providers to choose from. Twelve years ago, there was only one: Douglas County Visiting Nurses, Rehabilitation and Hospice Care, which has been offering services since 1981.

“Hospice is one of the fastest-growing programs under the Medicare benefit,” said Judith Bellome, executive director of Douglas County VNA. “There’s a lot going on in the hospice industry, not just in our little community, but nationwide. I will guess in the next 24 to 48 months – and I would put money on this one – there’s going to be some legislative mandates that cut reimbursement as well as make new rules about hospice, and it’s because this industry has become so inundated with for-profits.”

Kelly Rice is the volunteer coordinator at SouthernCare Hospice, a for-profit agency that began offering services seven years ago in Lawrence.

“I just think that different personalities fit with different people, and I think it’s good that you have a choice,” she said.

The Douglas County VNA plans to add to the community’s choices by opening a hospice guest house this year that would serve four people who don’t have family members or a support system to take care of them in the home. It would be operated by nurse aides.

“It’s kind of assisted living,” Bellome said. “What it does is it keeps people who otherwise have no other place to go out of the nursing home setting and out of the hospital in many cases.”

The VNA’s board approved the purchase of a $350,00, four-bedroom home last month. The project will be paid for by donations, fundraisers and money from its endowment.

She said there is a need for such a house in this community.

“The majority of people in the United States as well as in just our own community would prefer to die at home or in a homelike surrounding with people they love and care about,” she said. “So that’s what we are trying to do is provide that kind of a setting.”

Inpatient facility

Once the guest house is open, the VNA likely will begin raising money for a 12-bed inpatient hospice facility.

“We do know that we want to do a capital campaign. We believe that the community is ready for this and that they will support it. I think they will support it even more if we’ve done something by ourselves and shown that there is a need and that we can fill up that guest house,” Bellome said.

The VNA has asked county commissioners to donate 5 acres of county-owned land on the eastern side of the Douglas County United Way building, 2518 Ridge Court, for the facility that would be similar to a mini hospital but have a homelike atmosphere. It would have a registered nurse available for around-the-clock care.

Bellome said she wished her father could have had such an option. He died in early March in a hospital’s palliative care unit after suffering from heart problems. He stayed in the skilled nursing unit of his retirement community until they could no longer care for his pain and shortness of breath. Bellome said he didn’t need a feeding tube or ventilator, but needed skilled nurses to monitor his vital signs and assess his pain.

“It’s pretty ironic since my sister and I both have been trying so hard to get hospice home-like settings,” Bellome said. “Although he received excellent care, I would have preferred that he would have had a more homelike setting for the end of his life, and I think that’s what most people want.”