Palliative care for a senior loved one is beyond family’s love, ensuring that that seniors are in professional and capable hands.
People’s lives matter until their final breath. Society has given significance to services that ensure ailing individuals are provided with palliative care in a senior facility. Families can provide palliative care to an elder loved one in the home. In-home care has become a reasonable alternative and beyond family’s love.
When people hear the words hospice care, they’re often, though subconsciously, associated with hopelessness and death. Individuals admitted to these facilities are most likely patients who’ve undergone and exhausted every possible treatment available for their illnesses. Hospice care is both palliative care and end-of-life care. Hospice care can be provided by family caregivers as well as in a hospice facility. Some people can be in hospice care for a couple of years or as little as a couple of days. It is wrong to assume hospice care is strictly patients enter these services at the end of their lives and have nobody to take care of them.
Hospice Care and an Alternative
To a limited extent, these statements are true. Hospice care facilities are allotted to individuals in need of palliative care, whose families may not be available or willing to continue to care for them at home. Yet, at the same time, this care system also provides more than these typecasts. Contrary to common beliefs, hospice care should also be associated with comfort and hope, as these facilities manage physical pain and nonphysical symptoms.
NOTE TO NINA the writer is confusing hospice care to nursing home care. Hospice care in a hospice facility is free to Medicare recipients and covered by insurance for younger patients such as children with cancer. Hospice care is part of the nursing home continuum but nursing home care is crazy expensive. I’ve rewritten this paragraph to sort out the differences.
Despite its numerous benefits, the hospice care system also has its shortcomings. Hospice care in a free-standing hospice facility is covered by insurance and includes whatever care is necessary. A hospice care provider whether in a nursing home or free-standing facility allows families the opportunity to stay with their loved one at any time of day or night. Hospice care includes preparing families for the end of their loved one’s life. They ensure families are cared for in the same vein as the loved one receiving the medical or palliative care.
On the other hand, there are promising opportunities to improve care delivery and reduce costs through in-home hospice care services. This doesn’t mean patients are left home without a proper healthcare system. Instead, organizations can offer and guide families on how to properly and sufficiently provide adequate care at home. Still, optimal in-home care depends on collaboration between patients, their families, and the in-home care nurses and other in-home hospice staff services. To be sure in-home hospice care may be an excellent opportunity to improve care for these individuals, but there are always possible challenges.
Challenges to In-Home Care
Families need to recognize there are certain indicators that might make a family hesitant to choosing hospice care. Here are some issues to consider when selecting care at this level of need.
Patients’ Preference
Before deciding to turn to an in-home care system, the patient’s insight should be heard. Generally at this stage of illness or aging, patients will defer to family for assistance in decision making. The care provided in a facility will allow family members more freedom to continue with their daily lives knowing their loved one is being cared for. Providing care at home becomes a shared responsibility among family and with the consent of the loved one. Shared decisions will always be the right choice for the situation.
Professionals’ Concerns
While in-home care provides families more time with the patient, this environment may require more input from the clinicians and professionals involved. This means physicians must juggle multiple patients daily without compromising the quality of treatment. One patient may require more care moving the schedule for the remaining patients to be seen that day. Hospice entities ensure families have the proper equipment necessary to make in-home hospice care comfortable. They will provide hospital beds, wheelchairs, bath chairs, oxygen, and all medical supplies. In addition, families are taught to properly dispense medications. The hospice team takes care to observe that family and the patient are cared for.
Regulatory Environment
Regulations strictly followed in medical facilities are also applicable to in home-based care. In-home care services are governed by both state and federal regulations to make sure patients are safe and stable. Hospice care services are tied directly or indirectly to hospital-based services. Hospice care in a nursing home is a continuation of the nursing responsibilities. Regulators strive to ensure the same quality of care is provided in-home as in a facility.
Choosing in-home hospice for a loved one is a personal decision left to families and the patient. But the right hospice entity ensures care provided to all.
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