Lisa Guzman is the director of Blue Skies Hospice. She recently answered questions about her background in and beliefs about health and hospice care.
What is your background in health care?
I have been an RN since 1986. I worked at South Chicago Community Hospital for 10 years and then worked in home health and hospice. I then became an Advanced Practice Hospice and Oncology Nurse with a Masters degree in Nursing from Purdue in 2000. I am currently working on my Doctorate degree in nursing with a focus on oncology.
Why did you choose to start your own hospice organization?
I founded Blue SKies Hospice to provide care to the terminaly ill patient allowing a more holistic approach and treatment plan. I worked for other hospice companies in the past and found that holistic treatment was missing.
What makes hospice so important and what should people understand about hospice?
Hospice is important because it offers the patient and their families choices. Many patients do not want to undergo invasive procedures or go though the side effects of treatments if there is no chance for a cure. They would rather have the choice of quality of life and we can offer them that.
Why Blue Skies a great organization for patients and families? What is the philosophy of Blue Skies?
Blue Skies Hospice is a great organization for patients and families because our philosophy is that each patient recieves individualized holistic care regardless of race or financial status. We also allow patients to be enrolled in hospice and stay on all of their current medications, treat infections, and have feeding tubes if they choose to. We provide care from nurses, chaplains, social workers, volunteers and home health aides and also offer alternative treatments such as reflexology and reiki therapy should the patient be interested in that. When we admit a patient they become a part of our family. All of our staff regard hospice work as a calling, not a job.
What do you have planned for the future of Blue Skies?
In the future, Blue Skies Hospice wants to remain small. We think that the nurse to patient ratio is very important and we never want to lose the personal touch that we give to all of our clients and their families. Our goals in the future do include helping our community in any way that we can, whether that is letting businesses use our facilities in times of need as we did during the flooding in Munster, donating to local causes or continuing to take on charity cases for those less fortunate and unable to afford care.
