Taking A Broader Approach to End-of-Life Care

Let's face it. We all don't pay much attention to how we want to receive care at the end of life because we're too busy living our lives: taking care of kids, working hard, looking after aging parents or grandparents. It's tough to face the fact that the end of our lives will one day be upon us. Americans like to avoid the subject altogether.

Studies have shown that most of us want to spend our final days at home, surrounded by loved ones and all things familiar. No one wants to be in pain and most everyone certainly wants uncomfortable symptoms to be controlled.

But every person is different. Every family is different. A cookie cutter approach to the appropriate care and services doesn't serve the needs.

Yes, hospice care is a wonderful, compassionate broad-ranging plan of care for people at the end of life. We're huge champions. Most of Hospice Foundation's funding supports core hospice services. But hospice isn't for everyone because of its eligibility requirements--that the patient seeks only pain and symptom control and no longer curative therapies. Nor does it serve the full range of needs out there.


That's why Hospice Foundation has taken an innovative, proactive approach, working with local providers of end-of-life services, to determine the greatest needs in the community for end of life care and funding those services. We fund a range of end of life services, and we advocate for changes in the system to improve access to care for all.








For example, because of the hospice eligibility requirements by state and insurance payors, this option for years didn't sit well with parents. They didn't want to forego curative care and treatments for their kids, even if these weren't likely to change the course of their child's illness. Most parents don't want to go there, and they shouldn't have to. That's why we helped fund changes to the law and terminally ill kids can now receive hospice-like care at home while still undergoing treatments.

Whether it is for children or adults, Hospice Foundation is about funding solutions. We're also about ensuring that high-quality compassionate end-of-life care and services are available to all today and into the future. Please read more about our work on our website: http://www.hospicegiving.org/ and join the conversation on our Facebook page. Find Hospice Foundation. Tell us what you think.....