Pharmacy student training in United States hospices.

Hospice is a quickly growing field in health care in the United States. As the pharmacist's role in providing patient care to persons at the end of life increases, considerations should be given for training pharmacy students in this area. The objectives of this study were to examine the frequency of pharmacy student education and training among United States hospice organizations as well as to describe factors of hospice organizations that are associated with pharmacy student training. This is the first study of which we are aware to address the availability of experiential rotations for pharmacy students in hospice programs. A one-page questionnaire was mailed to 3,762 hospice organizations with addresses obtained from the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO). Following two mailings, eight weeks apart, 907 responses were obtained. Ninety-four (10 percent) hospices trained pharmacy students, 246 (27 percent) trained medical students, 357 (39 percent) trained social work students, and 623 (69 percent) trained nursing students. These results indicate that the experiential training needs of United States pharmacy students are being addressed. However, further study is warranted to describe the various experiences of pharmacy students within the hospice setting.     

End-of-life care: improving quality of life at the end of life

PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this article is to identify barriers and interventions that influence quality of life at the end of life. PRIMARY PRACTICE SETTINGS(S): Primary care, acute inpatient care, case management, and end-of-life care settings. FINDINGS/CONCLUSION: Death and dying affects the whole family, not just the individual who is dying. Early identification and recognition of end-of-life care choices heavily influence the quality of life an individual experiences during the dying process. Unfortunately, delaying end-of-life care plans is common. Over the years, the social structure and family structure have changed leaving many patients and families searching for viable end-of-life care options. Advancements in technology have affected the way medical professionals approach the end of life making a difficult decision for patients and families even more difficult by offering medical interventions that may not be necessary. To steer end-of-life care toward evidence-based practice standards, there needs to be additional research on the effectiveness of the various types of care available. Because case managers are often on the front lines of communicating and arranging end-of-life care, case managers need a clearer understanding of end-of-life care choices and how to communicate these choices to patients and families. The hospice and palliative care movements have been instrumental in increasing the understanding of end-of-life care and in providing patients alternatives to dying in the hospital. IMPLICATIONS FOR CASE MANAGEMENT PRACTICE: * Only 25% of patients eligible for hospice actually enter hospice programs.* The average time spent in hospice is 3 weeks.* The most significant barrier in coordinating and providing end-of-life care is inadequate communication.* Early discussion of prognosis and end-of-life care options helps facilitate earlier entry into hospice and palliative care programs.* The nursing profession needs additional research to determine the effectiveness of the various types of end-of-life care available and steer end-of-life care toward evidence-based practice standards.     

Practice patterns of hospice medical directors in a Midwestern state

This study of hospice medical directors was conducted in a Midwestern state with the help of the state hospice organization in the summer of 1998. The hospice programs in this state were young and relatively small. While having practiced medicine for many years, the majority of hospice medical directors had been affiliated with a hospice program for less than five years. The programs reported little orientation or continuing education for their physician leaders. Pain management practices were analyzed and compared with practice standards in the hospice pain management literature. Attitudes on the scheduled dosing of opioids, use of adjuvant medications for bone pain, the assessment of pain by the patient, and physician comfort with high doses of morphine are consistent with suggested standards and attitudes in the literature. Practice patterns that differed with the literature included choice of drugs, routes of administration, and dosing issues. Opportunities exist to improve care and lower cost.     

Medicaid policies for the hospice care needed by people with Alzheimer's disease

This study surveyed the state Medicaid programs and the state affiliates of the National Hospice Organization to identify Medicaid policies that improve the quality of hospice care provided to Medicaid recipients with Alzheimer's disease (AD). Medicaid programs should expand their use of the home and community-based care waiver programs to include specialized services that allow people with AD to remain at home and to assist family members with their care. Among these services are homemaker services, personal care, a range of respite care, home-delivered meals, and companion services. These waiver programs also allow states to establish more generous eligibility standards for waiver services, enabling more people with AD to quality for waiver coverage than would qualify for the traditional Medicaid program.     

Continuum of care comes full circle. Adding hospice care allows a Denver system to better meet patient needs

In November 1993 Hospice of Peace, a home hospice program in Denver, was reorganized under a new joint sponsorship of Provenant Health Partners and Catholic Charities and Community Services. Home hospice completes Provenant's continuum of healthcare. Based on the campus of Provenant Senior Life Center, Hospice of Peace employs multidisciplinary professionals who care for patients and their family care givers in their homes. Each hospice team works with a patient's physician and comes from a pool of primary care nurses, certified nurse assistants, social workers, counselors, pastoral care counselors, and specially trained volunteers and bereavement counselors. Respect for human life at all stages is the ethic behind the organizations' hospice efforts. Even at life's end, when aggressive medical treatment is no longer appropriate, healthcare professionals can enhance patients' quality of life and provide bereavement support to their loved ones. Just as Catholic healthcare addresses the spiritual component of healing, so it addresses the spiritual component of dying.     

The U.S. hospice movement: issues in development.

A grass-roots hospice care movement is underway in the United States modeled after recently popularized British hospice programs. Hospice care is intended to help the terminally ill maintain a personally acceptable quality of life until death. Attention should be given to ensuring the future viability of this service option by allowing for experimentation with and adaptation of existing models, and by integrating it with the overall health care system. Issues to be considered in integrating hospice care include utilization of existing resources, regional planning, standards and licensure, and reimbursement opportunities. Although hospice care may not have an immediate cost savings impact on the health care system, it could develop this capacity in the future. Such impact would not only assure a stable financial base for hospice care but would also affect bed use generally. Continuing dialogue among providers, consumers, and policy makers of various backgrounds is necessary to the effective and appropriate development of hospice care in the U.S.     

Why hospice day care?

Hospice day care would have to be flexible in order to meet individual needs. It would offer security, warmth and tender loving care, providing an opportunity for patients to socialize and maintain their quality of life. Hopefully day care would provide earlier hospice admissions--extending the continuity of care. Recently the hospice day care standards developed in Michigan were published in the American Journal of Hospice Care. They were developed to provide guidelines for policies and procedures which would assure a quality program. The future of hospice day care depends on further development and implementation of these beginning standards.     

Need satisfaction in terminal care settings

Research comparing hospice and conventional programs of care for the terminally ill has identified few measurable differences in the care provided to patients and their families. Nonetheless, hospice recipients frequently express a higher level of satisfaction with their program of care. This study compared the ability of hospice and conventional care settings to meet the basic emotional needs of families during a member's dying and death from cancer. In addition, the relationship of basic needs satisfaction, perceptions about the nurse, and overall satisfaction with the program of care were explored. One hundred bereaved familial care givers completed a mail questionnaire concerning their perceptions of care at the site of a family member's death. The sites were (1) the home, with care provided by a Medicare certified, community-based hospice program: (2) a hospital affiliated with a Medicare certified, community-based hospice program; (3) a hospital with its own hospice program; and (4) a conventional (non-hospice) hospital. Analyses of quantitative data supported two hypotheses about significant differences between hospice and conventional care. The conventional care group demonstrated the lowest levels of basic needs satisfaction, satisfaction with the psycho-social support of the nurse, and overall program satisfaction. As predicted, overall satisfaction with care was consistent across hospice groups. However, home hospice care provided the highest quality of basic needs satisfaction and the highest level of satisfaction with the nurse. Significant Pearson correlations supported the hypothesis that overall satisfaction is negatively related to unmet basic needs (r = -0.69) and positively related to the psycho-social support received from nurses (r = 0.73).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)     

Are our investments paying off?: a study of reading level and bereavement materials

The purpose of this article is to discuss the findings of a study that examined bereavement materials for reading level. The main research question for the study was: are printed hospice bereavement materials written at an eighth grade level or below? Readability was determined for approximately 90 individual pieces of hospice bereavement literature. The literature came from materials that were collected in a larger study and included bereavement letters to families and other educational and resource materials available to the bereaved families, the caregivers, and the public. The method used to perform readability on the materials was the Simplified Measure of Gobbledygook. This process has been used to determine readability for more than 35 years and is widely accepted by the literacy community. Results of the study revealed that the materials analyzed were written at just above a 10th grade reading level.     

A comparison of hospice and conventional care

Interviews with relatives and others who knew a group of people dying of cancer in England are reported. The bulk of the paper compares 45 such patients who received hospice care with 126 who received conventional care. The sampling procedure showed that 2.9% of people aged 15 or over at death died in a hospice, and 6.9% received some form of hospice service. The hospice patients differed in several ways from other cancer patients. They had fewer conditions other than cancer recorded on the death certificate, were believed to be more religious and were more likely to suffer from a variety of symptoms and restrictions, including pain. Hospice patients were reported more likely to know that they were dying and respondents' levels of satisfaction with hospice home nursing and in-patient hospice care were significantly higher than for other forms of care. Hospice home nurses were found to have adopted a more advisory approach to nursing care than other home nurses who focussed more on practical care. When final admissions were considered, in-patient hospice care involved fewer medical interventions and, in the last year of life, those receiving hospice services were less likely to have an operation. There were few differences between the two groups in what happened at the time of death, although for in-patient deaths, respondents judged the staff of hospices to be more understanding. The relatives of hospice patients were more likely to be visited by a nurse at home after the death. Few differences in bereavement reaction were found, but those that were suggested that respondents for the hospice group were adjusting better.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)     

Management strategies for palliative care: promoting quality, growth and opportunity

Over 20 years ago, hospice in the United States evolved to provide end-of-life care for terminally ill patients. However, three major barriers exist, which limit access to hospice care. The first two, cultural and regulatory barriers, are not under the direct control of hospices, although programs can be adapted to minimize their influence. The third, management focus, is controlled by hospice programs and has the greatest influence on access to care and quality of care. Under the influence of the Medicare Hospice Benefit and the peer pressure of managed care, many hospice programs use reimbursability as at least one criterion for determination of coverage of services. The fear is that limited reimbursement will cause some services and therapies to bring the programs to financial ruin. This case study shows the outcome of changing management focus away from restrictive policies about therapies and patient selection toward management of productivity and working capital. Some programs have contributed to growth and stability; the revenue thus produced has supported the new innovations. San Diego Hospice is now growing more than 30 percent per year in spite of competition and a fairly flat death rate in the community. This growth is attributed to finding and meeting unmet needs and making all decisions based on the right thing to do. Every staff member understands and supports the mission. The many programs within the agency contribute to fulfillment of the goal to transform end-of-life care. They are presented here as an example of what can be done with mission-based management.     

A comparative study of hospice services in the United States.

In order to document the implementation of the hospice concept in the United States, 24 hospices, in operation at least one year and serving at least 100 patients, were selected from the National Hospice Organization roster to participate in a survey of organization, staffing, funding, services and population served. All of the hospices offered both home care and bereavement programs but only 41.7 per cent provided an inpatient program. Ten of the hospices were institutionally based, usually in a hospital. Inpatient services were associated with institutional affliations. The average profile of patients admitted to hospice was a 60-year-old White (89 per cent), female (54.3 per cent) cancer patient (94.5 per cent) whose spouse was primary care giver (63.8 per cent). Hospices provided a wide variety of both medical and social services provided by volunteers as well as paid staff. It appears that two divergent types of hospices are developing: 1) independent, heavily volunteer hospices with a variety of professional staff delivering a wide array of social/psychological services with unstable funding; and 2) institutionally based hospices providing both inpatient and home care, greater variety of medical/nursing services, less variety of social/psychological services, using fewer types of volunteers and paid staff, and not experiencing funding problems.     

Grief response of the primary caregiver receiving bereavement follow-up care at home.

This study implies specific guidelines for intervention. It appears that bereavement follow-up may lessen the grief response at 13 months. Therefore, hospice programs should continue this valuable service. Follow-up interventions should focus on the factors which proved significant: rumination, loss of control, and death anxiety. The study also provided the beginnings of a risk assessment tool for bereaved individuals. Increased age was proved to be a risk factor related to a greater grief response. Although most of the literature indicates women are at a higher risk early in the bereavement period, this study showed that at a later time men expressed a greater degree of grief. The implications of the study include the need for ongoing education regarding the normal grief response and the physical and emotional manifestations of grief. The results of the study support emotional care for survivors as well as provision for appropriate referral resources as needed.     

Hospice values, access to services, and the Medicare hospice benefit.

The Medicare benefit has been an important force in shaping the American hospice movement during the 1980's. Hospice reimbursement under Medicare added legitimacy to the movement, increased access to hospice care for some Medicare beneficiaries, and provided financial support to Medicare certified hospice programs. But the increased access for some may come at the cost of decreased access for others, and the price of reimbursement may be the erosion of hospice as a unique form of terminal care in this country. It is up to hospice professionals to balance the fiscal realities of providing hospice care without losing sight of the values and philosophies that have made hospice a "special kind of care."     

Unique aspects of caring for dying children and their families

Pediatric hospice has become an important service for children and their families in the past decade. In this article we present unique aspects of StarShine, the hospice of Children's Hospital Medical Center in Cincinnati, Ohio. Length-of-service data demonstrate the need to find innovative ways of encouraging earlier referral to hospice. Several specialized aspects of care, such as long-term bereavement, pet visitation and social services for the family are presented. The initiation of a novel in-home pain management program is described. StarShine has not followed an adult hospice model, and as such, we discuss those unique aspects of dying pediatric patients and suggest specific solutions and interventions designed for children.     

The business of palliative medicine--Part 3: The development of a palliative medicine program in an academic medical center

Palliative medicine is the total continuing care of patients with cancer. Most resources for cancer care focus on curative attempts while often ignoring the symptoms created by the disease and its treatment. Attempts at curative treatment of the malignancy must be coupled with pain and symptom relief psychosocial and spiritual care, and support for the patient and family extending from the time of diagnosis through the bereavement period. To accomplish this important goal, we must establish comprehensive palliative medicine programs in cancer centers throughout the world. These programs must include education, research, and patient care and must work through an interdisciplinary team. The Cleveland Clinic Foundation palliative medicine program (PMP) is composed of a primary inpatient service, consult service, outpatient clinic, hospice homecare, and cancer homecare services. In this article, we describe the structure and development of the program and suggest future avenues for growth.     

Hospice Family Members' Perceptions of and Experiences With End-of-Life Care in the Nursing Home

Objective

Even though more than 25% of Americans die in nursing homes, end-of-life care has consistently been found to be less than adequate in this setting. Even for those residents on hospice, end-of-life care has been found to be problematic. This study had 2 research questions; (1) How do family members of hospice nursing home residents differ in their anxiety, depression, quality of life, social networks, perceptions of pain medication, and health compared with family members of community dwelling hospice patients? (2) What are family members’ perceptions of and experiences with end-of-life care in the nursing home setting?

Methods

This study is a secondary mixed methods analysis of interviews with family members of hospice nursing home residents and a comparative statistical analysis of standard outcome measures between family members of hospice patients in the nursing home and family members of hospice patients residing in the community.

Results

Outcome measures for family members of nursing home residents were compared (n = 176) with family members of community-dwelling hospice patients (n = 267). The family members of nursing home residents reported higher quality of life; however, levels of anxiety, depression, perceptions of pain medicine, and health were similar for hospice family members in the nursing home and in the community. Lending an understanding to the stress for hospice family members of nursing home residents, concerns were found with collaboration between the nursing home and the hospice, nursing home care that did not meet family expectations, communication problems, and resident care concerns including pain management. Some family members reported positive end-of-life care experiences in the nursing home setting.

Conclusion

These interviews identify a multitude of barriers to quality end-of-life care in the nursing home setting, and demonstrate that support for family members is an essential part of quality end-of-life care for residents. This study suggests that nursing homes should embrace the opportunity to demonstrate the value of family participation in the care-planning process.     

Assessment of GP management of symptoms of dying patients in an Australian community hospice by chart audit

BACKGROUND: With specialist palliative care services becoming widespread, and the place of the GP in palliative care being examined, audit of patient care delivered by GPs is required in order to ensure adequate standards of care. OBJECTIVE: We aimed to evaluate symptomatic care delivered to palliative care patients by GPs in an Australian community hospice with a developed quality assurance programme. METHODS: The study was set in a newly established community-based, GP- run hospice in a provincial city in Queensland, Australia. A chart audit was carried out of the first 20 patients admitted to a community- based hospice, in order to establish (i) whether attempts were made by the treating doctor to find the direct cause of symptoms before initiating management; and (ii) whether management accorded with developed consensus-based guidelines. RESULTS: Twenty patients were treated by 14 GPs; 135 new symptoms were identified in the records of these patients. Of the 125 symptoms for which guidelines could be identified in the literature, in 87 (70%) an attempt by the treating GP to find a direct cause could be demonstrated. Of the 114 symptoms with treatments defined in the guidelines, 107 (90%) treatments conformed to the guidelines. Constipation, nausea/vomiting, anorexia and back pain were the conditions for which there were the fewest attempts at establishing a direct cause before treatment. In most cases these conditions were treated in accordance with the guidelines. CONCLUSION: Quality assurance mechanisms present in an in-patient palliative care setting appear to be associated with high-quality care by GPs.      

A new concept in cancer care: the supportive care program

This article describes the findings of a pilot program designed to enter advanced prostate cancer patients into the hospice benefit while they are still being actively treated, but in situations where treatment is known to be primarily palliative in nature. The supportive care program (SCP) combines the medical model's goal to prolong life with the goal of hospice to palliate symptoms and improve quality of life (QOL). The concept of a SCP was developed to create a team approach where advanced prostate cancer patients who are starting investigational chemotherapy are concurrently enrolled into a hospice program. The objectives were to identify whether SCP improved QOL and continuity of care while remaining cost-effective. Data were collected on patient quality of life, performance status, use of health care resources, and costs for the 36 enrolled patients. A comparison was made to a matched set of 23 control patients. Our findings indicate that the SCP contributes to continuity of care while being cost-effective.     

Hospice medical directors: a survey of one state

IntroductionLittle research exists regarding hospice medical directors (HMD). This project describes the HMD’s background and training, clinical roles, and current function within the hospice organization and their interdisciplinary groups.MethodsA survey was mailed to each licensed hospice that was also a member of the state hospice association in one state. Thirty-one HMDs from 31 hospice programs (40% response rate) in one state responded.ResultsFindings show that the role of the HMD in this state is primarily part-time and filled by primary care physicians. Most HMDs report being satisfied with their positions. No more than one third belong to any one professional association and no physician in this survey was certified in palliative care by the American Board of Medical Specialties. The role for most of these HMDs centers around their clinical contribution to the team.DiscussionDespite the 2008 revisions in the regulations, the HMD roles still vary across hospices, and requirements regarding the specialty, training, and education for physicians are not specified. Professional associations for HMDs should target these part-time physicians in an effort to build a comprehensive organization represented by all types of HMDs.ConclusionThe part-time nature of HMDs has important implications for professional organizations and policy makers. Palliative care certification and continuing education opportunities need to be made available to these physicians. Additionally, new changes requiring face-to-face visits for recertification should consider the part-time nature of HMD work and the difficulties that the requirement will have in both cost for the hospice and access to primary care in rural areas.