Volunteers support segment of hospice
Volunteers support segment of hospice
After decline, numbers now holding steady
The volunteer-intensive hospice model, thought by many to be terminally ill from the onslaught of financial pressures and the proliferation of Medicare-certified hospices, is alive and surviving the transformation of the health care system, asserts Rhoda Eagan, founder and project leader of the Volunteer Hospice Network (VHN). VHN is a new program of the Washington, DC-based Hospice Association of America (HAA).
At least 200 volunteer hospices, most of which primarily provide supportive services and bereavement counseling in partnership with larger Medicare-certified hospices, have been identified by VHN. About 20 volunteer hospice managers attended a two-day organizing session held in conjunction with the HAA/National Association for Home Care annual meeting last October in Nashville, TN.
After a period of dwindling numbers, volunteer-intensive hospices now seem to be holding steady, Eagan says. They appear to have found a source of financial stability by focusing on what they do best and on their relationships with their communities. "The hospice’s message to the community is that the community owns the hospice, and their communities love them." The windfall for volunteer hospices from the industry’s current turmoil is that "we aren’t restricted in our admission criteria. We’ve been free to explore innovative ideas and focus on non-reimbursed services."
One of the most provocative trends uncovered at the Nashville meeting is the establishment of volunteer-staffed hospice residences for terminally ill patients who can’t be in their own homes. At least three such facilities have opened, and seven more are under development, Eagan says. In Winston-Salem, NC, the Human Service Alliance has launched the Care of the Terminally Ill Project with six beds for "guests" who receive free 24-hour residential palliative care from an all-volunteer staff. Some of the volunteers live at the facility and receive room, board, and training in exchange for their services. At this facility, as with other volunteer hospice residences, skilled nursing and other professional services are provided by a certified hospice or other agency that visits the facility as it would for patients living at home.
Eagan advocates a philosophy for the network that no hospice model is better than any other, and the network has no standards or requirements for members, since diversity is critical to the volunteer model’s survival. "We want to embrace all models but the emphasis is on those providing supportive services in partnership with certified agencies, while getting back to the original founding mission and values of the hospice movement."
VHN has just launched a quarterly newsletter, distributed by HAA, and hopes to compile a national directory of volunteer hospices. In many cases, agencies providing similar supportive, nonskilled, non-licensed services for people with life-threatening illnesses and their grieving survivors have been forced by state hospice licensure laws to call themselves something other than hospice. The network is also looking for contributions of successful activities, partnerships, agreements, and manuals by volunteer hospices, which will be included in a national resource center.
[For more information, contact Rhoda Eagan at 607 Hawke St., Fredericksburg, VA 22401. Telephone: (540) 371-1649. Or contact HAA at (202) 546-4759.
A similar network has also been formed in Canada, called the Hospice Volunteer Network. Contact Michelle Houle at 55 Oakmount Road, #601, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M6P 2M5.]
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