UPMC hospice VP says hospice care is about the people, not the location
News of the closing of In Touch Hospice House sparked a large protest earlier this week at UPMC Somerset.
But one high ranking UPMC official claims that, even with the closing, hospice care will "expand" and "enhance" in Somerset County.
UPMC Hospice Operations Vice President Jennifer Vennare said that hospice care will continue in patient's homes and at skilled nursing facilities.
"We’re going to continue to expand our services as well as enhance our four levels of comprehensive hospice care," Vennare said.
She said those for levels are routine, respite, inpatient and continuous care.
"Continuous care is more or less focused around when a patient has symptoms that need to be managed, and we predominantly staff that patient's home with a nurse, as well as some other disciplines, until those symptoms are managed," she said, adding that a nurse or nurse aide could be in a patient's home from 8 to 24 hours a day. "But the main purpose of the continuous care level of hospice is to make sure we’ve achieved palliation, and that the management of their symptoms has subsided.
"We would not leave that home from a hospice perspective until those symptoms were managed."
More:UPMC Somerset is closing inpatient care at In Touch Hospice. Here's what to know.
Protest:Dozens protested the closing of In Touch Hospice House Tuesday. Here's what to know.
Cancer care:The Hillman Cancer Center is now open at UPMC Somerset. Here's everything you need to know
For inpatient care at UPMC Somerset, she said a patient would be treated with a "general inpatient level of care."
"For the most part it is short-term care and focused on symptom management, and we provide that symptom management or symptom control in a setting such as a hospital so they still have that support at bedside from a hospital perspective, as well as daily visits occurring from the hospice nurse perspective," she said.
For that inpatient care, she said, a patient could show up at the emergency department and not be able to be sent back home.
In Touch Hospice House is set to end inpatient services Aug. 1. UPMC Regional Communications Director Lisa Lombardo said that about 30 staff members are currently on UPMC Somerset's hospice team.
Vennare said that at any given time, In Touch sees an average of at least three patients who usually stay for days.
News of the closing of In Touch caused more than 100 people to protest Tuesday outside of the hospital.
Multiple people questioned the health network's intent to the Daily American, including volunteers, staff, family of former In Touch patients and a current patient.
Vennare said that plans for the next use of the In Touch facility are still being proposed.
"It's filled with a ton of memories, and appropriately so. I think it is just an ongoing evolution of what that will look like moving forward, and I believe that once we have enough info we can determine next steps more," she said. "Some ideas are proposed that we can absolutely keep people updated, but we want to make sure that we maintain the history there and that we honor that space so that we can continue to be appropriately respectful to that building and the community."
She said that officials are also looking to expand volunteering opportunities for hospice care. In the end, she said that hospice care is about the people who deliver it, not where it is delivered.
"Hospice is not a place. It's not a building, it’s a benefit," she said. "Part of that benefit is having that vital part to end-of-life care being provided at bedside by an exceptional team of people who have been called to do this great work. And when the hospice staff can take what they are doing at bedside at the hospice house in Somerset and pick it up and deliver that same care in a living room, or deliver that same care on a unit in the hospital or that same care in a unit in a facility that we contracted with, that is truly what hospice is. That skilled compassionate care is truly what defines hospice. It’s not necessarily the four walls the care is taking place in."
Follow Eric Kieta on Twitter @EricKietaDA.
This article originally appeared on The Daily American: UPMC hospice official claims that services will be expanded, enhanced
