New hospice brings new care to the Cass area
Jul. 23—Logansport officially welcomed Heart to Heart Hospice with a ribbon cutting on Thursday.
The office at 1 Cass Center, suite 214-217, is the 15th location in Indiana for an operation that has roots in Texas and is established in Michigan and Indiana. The Logansport site has been operational since June 1.
When Heart to Heart hears from small communities, it looks at having a "brick and mortar" presence, said the hospice's Area Vice President Jeff Duermit.
That's so they can provide service and react quickly when someone calls them.
"You don't get a lot of calls at 2 in the afternoon," he said. "You get them at two in the morning."
When someone calls at 2 a.m., you don't want to tell them you'll be there as soon as you leave Elkhart, he said.
Faun Brown, AVP of Operations, said that having the Logansport office will allow them to be local to cover the area 24/7 instead of out of its main Indiana office in Saint Joe.
The office will focus on Cass and the six surrounding counties, Carroll, Fulton, Howard, Miami, Pulaski and White. Logansport is one of four offices they opened this year.
"We do very well in smaller communities," Brown said.
Before coming here, they looked at Logansport Memorial Hospital and its cancer center, as well as the area demographics.
Duermit said that many people don't fully understand hospice care. It's not just taking care of people as they die.
The hospice can work with the family on things like planning for wills (Heart to Heart can't do this directly because it has no legal authority), last wishes and with therapy for the family.
The calls come in when patients aren't reading well, having more pain or showing other signs of getting worse.
"We want to be their first call," Duermit said. "Most people prefer to die at home, so it's our job to keep them out of the hospital."
They strive to be life-fulfilling and make things easier.
The thing they hear most often is "I wish we would've called you sooner," he said.
The Logansport Heart to Heart has Dr. Tonya Brown, who has an internal medicine office in Kokomo and privileges at LMH, as the medical director.
The staff is currently a nurse supervisor, a customer education representative, an aide, a social worker and a chaplain, said Brown.
Duermit said the goal is to have a team of five or six nurses, five to six hospice aides, the social worker and chaplain and potentially therapists, including massage therapists.
Each nurse has a caseload of 12 to 15 patients, with the full staff, there can be two shifts with the night shift working 5 p.m. to 8 a.m.
The hospice originally came to Logansport, and its office on the second floor of the PNC Bank Building at East Broadway and Third Street, last August, but the pandemic did not give Heart to Heart the opportunity to have contact with patients, delaying the opening until last month.
"With COVID, it's been a little challenging," said Brown.
However, they already have patients in Peru, she added.
Currently, Heart to Heart handles about 1,000 patients in Indiana, and the next Indiana office the company plans to open will be in Lake County.
"As our reputation grows, we grow with it," he said.
More information about the firm's services is at https://hearttohearthospice.com.
Reach James D. Wolf Jr. at james.wolf@pharostribune.com or 574-732-5117
Twitter @JamesDWolfJr
