What Is Hospice

The word hospice is derived from a medieval word for a place of shelter for travelers on difficult journeys. Today, the traveler seeking shelter in hospice is on a final journey and the care needed is truly personal. A interdisciplinary team of healthcare professionals, (paid and volunteer), respond to a hospice patient’s needs by providing physical, emotional, and spiritual support to both the patient and their family at home or in an inpatient setting.

Hospice is a unique concept and system of care, which is exclusively designed to address the challenging and often difficult needs and circumstances of a patient with a life expectancy that can be spoken of in terms of months rather than years.

Hospice services embrace the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of both the patient and the family through an organized interdisciplinary team of health care providers. The primary focus of hospice is to deliver the highest quality services in a home setting, with the ability to intensify services or move the patient to the appropriate inpatient setting, as required by the patient's condition and/or the family's needs.

The medical orientation of hospice personnel is toward symptom management and pain control. Hope of remission and cure is never abandoned, but the focus is on creating an environment for the patient and family that allows everyone to derive the greatest fulfillment from the remaining days they have to share with one another.

A physician, nurse, nurse assistant, social worker, volunteer, and Chaplain comprise the core of the Hospice Interdisciplinary Team. The Hospice Team works together with the patient and the family to provide care and emotional support. Speech therapists, occupational therapists, physical therapists, volunteers and dieticians become a part of the team, as needed. The intimacy of this unique team of healthcare professionals working together creates an environment where it is possible for patients, families, and hospice personnel to share the precious moments that remain, with one another. When a patient dies, bereavement counseling is extended to the family for a period of fifteen months.

Hospice of North Central Oklahoma, Inc. is Sojourn...a place to find respite...