Blue Skies Hospice Will Offer Care and Treatment

A recent report from National Public Radio reveals that 12 percent of hospices reject patients who do not already have a caretaker at home. Blue Skies Hospice will offer care and provide treatment to all patients, regardless of whether or not they have a caretaker at home. If they do have a caretaker, Blue Skies will effectively cooperate with that caretaker to provide the best care and treatment possible. Lack of a caretaker will not prevent Blue Skies from working with any patient.

The staff of doctors, nurses, clergy, social workers, and volunteers is dedicated to reducing suffering and giving peace and comfort to patients and their families.

Valentines For Veterans

Blue Skies Hospice has become a national partner of We Honor Veterans, a pioneering campaign developed by National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization in collaboration with the Department of Veterans Affairs.

As a We Honor Veterans Partner Blue Skies Hospice will focus on recognizing the needs of our nations veterans who are facing a life-limiting illness.

To get our partnership under way, Blue Skies Hospice is hosting "Valentines for Veterans" -

Valentines for Veterans
February 11, 2013

Speaker: Disabled Veterans Organization Chicago Office Representative
Topics: How to Apply for Veterans Benefits - Getting Through the Red Tape
Learn About Benefits You Never Knew You Were Eligible For

Time: 12pm - 3pm
Place: Blue Skies Hospice
          2714 169th Street
          Hammond, IN 4623

For reservations call (219) 554-0688

Call Hospice Early and Often, says NY Times Journalist

Paula Span, writing for the New York Times, strongly recommends that families call hospice early for the care and treatment of their terminal loved ones. She writes,

I’ve often wondered why more families don’t call hospice when a loved one has a terminal disease — and why people who do call wait so long, often until death is just days away.

Even though more than 40 percent of American deaths now involve hospice care, many families still are trying to shoulder the burden on their own rather than turning to a proven source of help and knowledge. I’ve surmised that the reason is families’ or patients’ unwillingness to acknowledge the prospect of death, or physicians’ inability to say the h-word and refer dying patients to hospice care.

Span elaborates on the issues preventing families from taking full advantage of the care hospice offers by identifying harmful regulations and Medicare policies that actually discourage entry into hospice. She writes about the changes in medicine that render many of the old regulations, which were once sensible, antiquated. The entire article is worth reading, especially for her full endorsement of the benefits patients and families receive from hospice. 

Blue Skies Hosts Movie Night at Kindred Care

On December 5, Blue Skies volunteers organized a Christmas movie night at Kindred Care, and treated residents to peppermint ice cream and cookies. Residents enjoyed a showing of the holiday favorite Elf. There was laughter, fellowship, and fun. Blue Skies volunteers were happy to host the event.

Blue Skies Volunteers (left to right): Emma, Pat, Briann, John, Vinnay, Lou, Pearl, Jeff

Volunteer Vinnay Kakkera enjoys peppermint ice cream

Blue Skies Participates in Hammond Christmas Parade

On December 1, the Blue Skies staff participated in the Christmas parade of Hammond, Indiana. Blue Skies was happy to be part of the wonderful, communal event with various Hammond businesses, non-profits, and organizations. Blue Skies enjoys being part of the Hammond community, and will continue to do it all can to contribute to its growth and empowerment.

Blue Skies Director Lisa Guzman and Volunteer Coordinator Pearl Masciotra in the parade.

Hospice Care and Nursing Homes

Paula Span, a health advocate, writes for the New York Times' blog on health issues writes about a new study from the Archives of Internal Medicine that looks at how and why terminally ill and actively dying patients choose nursing home care or hospice care. It is often a choice they are forced to make rather than freed to make. As Span writes,

An older person, someone who will die within six months, leaves a hospital. Where does she go?

Almost a third of the time, according to a recent study from the University of California, San Francisco, records show she takes advantage of Medicare’s skilled-nursing facility benefit and enters a nursing home. But is that the best place for end-of-life care?

In terms of monitoring her vital signs and handling IVs — the round-the-clock nursing care that the skilled-nursing facility benefit is designed to provide — maybe so. But for treating end-of-life symptoms like pain and shortness of breath, for providing spiritual support for her and her family, for palliative care that helps her through the ultimate transition – hospice is the acknowledged expert.

She could receive hospice care, also covered by Medicare, while in the nursing home. But since Medicare only rarely reimburses for both hospice and the skilled-nursing facility benefit at the same time, this hypothetical patient and her family face a financial bind. If she opts for the hospice benefit, which does not include room and board at the nursing home, then she will be on the hook for hundreds of dollars a day to remain in the facility.

She could use the hospice benefit at home, of course. But, “we know these patients are medically complex,” said Katherine Aragon, lead author of the study in The Archives of Internal Medicine, and now a palliative care specialist at Lawrence General Hospital in Massachusetts.

“And we know that taking care of someone near the end of life can be very demanding, hard for families to manage at home.” And that assumes the patient has a family or a home.
For some patients, a nursing home, though possibly dreaded, is the only place that can provide 24/7 care.

But if she uses the skilled-nursing facility benefit to pay for room and board in a facility, she probably has to forgo hospice.

Blue Skies Hospice provides palliative care and visitation to many residents of nursing homes. It enjoys a relationship with nursing homes and long term care facilities in Northwest Indiana, and is able to fill in the gaps of people's treatment - people who are seeking the stability, care, and benefits of health care facilities, but also need, as Span identifies, the palliative treatment, emotional support, and spiritually edifying companionship that hospice provides. 

If you are in the Northwest Indiana area and are preparing to put a relative in a long term care facility, you might want to consider asking if that nursing home has a relationship with Blue Skies, and if hospice care is available.

Blue Skies is only one hospice doing the best it can. As the study's author makes clear, the United States needs to move in a better direction, nationally - "Palliative care should be part of nursing home care,” said Alexander K. Smith, the study’s senior author and a palliative care specialist at the University of California, San Francisco. “And that regulation that prevents concurrent use of the S.N.F. benefit and hospice isn’t in the interest of patients and families.”

New Study on Hospice Care Provides Answers and Reasons for Concern

The National Hospice and Palliative Care association reports in a new study that the number of patients receiving hospice care continues to increase. While this news is encouraging, it is troubling that a large number of those patients are in hospice care for less than a week.

It is difficult for families to confront the reality of a loved one's impending death, but hospice should enter the discussion sooner rather than later. It is capable of bringing comfort to patients and families, and through that comfort, eliminating some of the outlying concerns that so often accompany such a painful and difficult period.

Blue Skies Hospice is staffed by competent and compassionate nurses, doctors, clergy, social workers, and volunteers to ensure that palliative care for patients brings peace of mind and body. Additional time spent in hospice allows the staff to prepare the patient and family for the upcoming change, spiritually and emotionally, rather than just physically and medicinally.

Read the new study to learn about the growth of hospice care. The study does demonstrate that American culture is learning the value of hospice care, and that is a promising development.