Hospice Provides Skilled Care and Compassion at the End of Life
Contact: Crossing Rivers Communications
Prairie du Chien, WI – Hospice and palliative care programs provide pain management, symptom control, psychosocial support, and spiritual care to patients and their families when a cure is not possible. The award-winning hospice team at Crossing Rivers Health is proud of their role as skilled and compassionate patient advocates as they approach the end of life.
“Hospice providers are blessed to be involved in a patient’s death,” says Crossing Rivers Health Hospice Director Laura Lane, “very few people will have the opportunity to see the beauty in those final moments.” Hospice providers are able to help guide the patient and their families through those final moments. “As difficult as they are, there is a peaceful beauty in those last words and last breath.”
Hospice focuses on a holistic approach to end-of-life care. Emotional and spiritual support can be just as important as symptom control to hospice patients and their families. Lane says that when a hospice patient and their family feel fully supported through the end-of-life process, they tend to experience a more peaceful death. “Sometimes hospice patients and families don’t even realize how important emotional and spiritual support is to their journey until hospice becomes involved and starts to have conversations about what some would consider ‘difficult’ subjects,” Lane says, ”having someone who has the time to sit and listen can make a world of difference.”
Earlier this year, Crossing Rivers Health Hospice was named a Hospice Honors recipient by HEALTHCAREfirst, a provider of billing and coding services, consumer surveys, and analytics for healthcare providers. The recognition program recognizes hospices providing the highest level of quality as measured from the caregiver’s point of view.
Hospice care can still be a misunderstood concept to some. To qualify for hospice care means a person is coming to the end of their life, but that does not mean that the patient stops enjoying the remaining time that they have. Lane says, “Hospice is there to support the patient and family in those last decisions, keep them comfortable so that they can enjoy their family, friends, pets, church, community, recreational activities, and more.”
“It’s not just about death,” she says, “it’s also about enjoying life.”