The Life-Changing Difference of Hospice Care and the Continuum of Care

When a patient is terminally ill, hospice is usually the most appropriate form of care. It’s never that simple, though. End-of-life care means different things to different patients, and family members are often (and understandably) reluctant to place their loved one in hospice. 

There are so many varying needs and levels of care that fall in between a hospital bed and a hospice bed, which is why Mission Healthcare brings home health, transitional care, and hospice together under one roof. 

The Home Health and Hospice Bridge Program

Home health and hospice often go hand in hand. Many patients can even benefit from receiving both services simultaneously. Mission’s bridge program connects the two by continuously assessing patients’ needs and adjusting their care level accordingly. 

For example, a patient who goes home from the hospital with a broken hip might hire home health to help them with daily medical needs such as physical therapy. If it is discovered during the patient’s rehabilitation that he has a terminal illness and is declining rapidly, he may then transition from home health to hospice. That process becomes less strenuous for the family and more comfortable for the patient when the same company provides both services. 

Connecting Transitional Care

There are plenty of organizations offering both home health and hospice services, but few also offer transitional care. That’s a gap that Mission is bridging, because hospices generally don’t provide custodial care to patients in their homes. Through Mission, home health or hospice patients who need private caregiving, such as bathing or errands, have seamless access to transitional care, whether they need care for one hour out of the day or around the clock. 

The Continuum of Care

By integrating home health, transitional care, and hospice, Mission has established a continuum of care that other providers simply can’t offer. The continuum of care is truly making a positive impact on the lives of our patients, their families, and their healthcare partners by: 

• Making privately paid custodial care more readily available to patients
• Providing ongoing care and assessments
• Offering on-call support to patients and their families
• Liaising between patients and their primary care physicians
• Re-linking patients to community resources after discharge
• Minimizing the burden of outreach and research for everyone
• Advocating for patients
• Facilitating and easing end-of-life care conversations
• Serving as a trusted advisor to patients and providers alike

Send Them Home with Mission

Mission Healthcare utilizes the breadth of available resources to provide the right level of care, at the right time, in the right setting. When you refer a patient to Mission, you are sending them home, where they’ll have all of their needs met by our passionate and skilled team. Click here to contact Mission Healthcare today.