Patient and Family/Caregiver
The patient and family determine their own path and set their own goals with the support of the interdisciplinary team.
Patient’s Primary Care Physician
Hospice encourages patients to continue their relationships with their personal physician. Together with the patient and family, the hospice team works in consultation with the patient’s physician who remains involved and updated on the patient’s care and condition.
Hospice Medical Director
The hospice medical director works collaboratively with the team and your physician to ensure your pain and symptoms are managed effectively. The hospice team consults with the medical director routinely and oversees your plan of care.
RN Case Manager
Your hospice nurse is a seasoned professional who specializes in pain and symptom management and will visit you consistently and frequently to ensure all your care needs are met. Our nurses are available on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for questions, concerns or crisis situations. The hospice nurse is driven by your goals and will help coordinate the hospice team, provide consultation, education and guidance and arrange for all medications, therapy, and special medical equipment needs.
Hospice Social Worker
The social worker is available to help you with emotional and practical needs and can meet with you and your family to help face some of the challenges. Our licensed social workers provide supportive counseling and also help navigate other systems and provide advocacy, referrals, and linkages to resources. In some situations, the social workers provide support with planning final arrangements.
Hospice Home Health Aides
For those who need assistance with personal care, our Certified Home Health Aides offer gentle and compassionate care. They have been carefully selected and receive ongoing specialized training. The Hospice Home Health Aide is assigned based on your needs and scheduled and supervised by the RN Case Manager.
Spiritual Care
Our chaplain may offer companionship, prayers if desired, and a listening heart without judgement. Individuals and families are respected for who they are, regardless of what they may or may not believe. If desired, the hospice chaplain may help guide patients toward acceptance and spiritual peace. When needed or requested, the chaplain can provide referrals and facilitate connections to the patient’s own preferred community of faith. In cases where patients and families are already connected to their own faith community, the chaplain provides spiritual care to supplement, not replace that relationship. In some cases, families have requested our chaplain to assist or officiate funeral services and celebrations of life.
Music Therapy
Our board certified music therapist uses music to help bring emotional support, family connection, and can help to reduce pain, promote peace, life-review, and joy. Music therapy is an established healthcare profession that uses music to address physical, emotional, cognitive, and social needs for individuals of all ages. For the hospice patient, music is a wonderful aid to highlight the important aspects of an individual’s life.
Massage Therapy
Through consultation and assessment, our licensed and knowledgeable therapist provides a creative and tailored approach that goes beyond touch to offer a holistic and beneficial experience specific to individual needs to provide comfort and reduce pain.
Specially Trained Volunteers
A vital part of hospice is the carefully selected and well-trained volunteers working alongside the professional staff. They are good listeners, nonjudgmental, adaptable, and have a strong desire to reach out with love and concern for others. Volunteers help provide a number of services including companionship, running errands, or providing company while the caregiver takes a break. Volunteers can read to patients, pray with patients in their own faith tradition, or hold a hand to provide comfort. All volunteers are properly screened and complete comprehensive and ongoing training.
Grief and Bereavement Counselor
Along with our social workers, the bereavement counselor is available to help during an emotionally difficult time. The bereavement counselor remains available for the family for 13 months after the passing of their loved one and has extensive knowledge and experience with grief related concerns for children and adults. Ongoing services include periodic phone calls as desired, mailings to provide support and education, individual visits, supportive counseling, and support groups. For needs that exceed the scope of the hospice bereavement services, referrals to other organizations and professionals within the community are available.
Life Stories Project
An individual’s personal life story can be a precious memory to their loves ones, family and friends. At JHC Hospice we are able to provide a service to our patients and their families to share and preserve their personal Life Story. Our specially trained volunteers will interview and ask the thought provoking questions that make it easy for our patients to recall the important people, places, memories, experiences and events that have shaped their lives. They then assemble a personal Life Story to be shared and passed along for generations.
Quilt of Dignity at the Jewish Healthcare Center
JHC strongly believes that each person who leaves the facility after death, should go with a sense of dignity. Created to be part of this process of transporting the body, the Quilt of Dignity is a beautifully crafted quilt used to cover the patient at the time of death. Family and friends are offered to join the funeral director and caregivers as they escort the body through the lobby and out the front door to a waiting hearse, completing this important ritual. This sense of connection and community is a final way of honoring your loved one.
The quilt was developed by the Good and Welfare Committee compromised of Toby Richmond, Lois Singer and Bernice Dworman. The quilt was created by Cornelia Goldsmith and designed to be non-denominational, while at the same time reflect the tapestry which hangs in the JHC Chapel.