Is Your Assisted Living Facility Getting the Support It Needs?

By Charles Harris, Director of Community Partnerships

Hospice of the Chesapeake

. https://www.hospicechesapeake.org/

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Is Your Assisted Living Facility Getting the Support It Needs?

Most assisted living facility owners and their management teams already understand the clinical role of hospice. They know we have an expert team that supports their residents living with serious illnesses.

What doesn’t get talked about enough is what a strong hospice partnership does for the business itself. We collaborate with staffing, compliance, family satisfaction and operational support. This isn’t just a clinical conversation. It’s a business one.

We start by listening

Before anything else, our goal is to understand your facility to learn what’s working well and where additional support might help. Every facility is different, and a hospice partnership should be built around your specific needs. That conversation costs nothing and creates the foundation for a relationship that genuinely strengthens your team.

We come equipped

When our team supports a resident, we bring what’s needed: hospital beds, oxygen, mobility aids, medications, personal hygiene supplies, and more — all covered by the patient’s Medicare, Medicaid, or private insurance, and all coordinated by hospice. Your staff isn’t managing that burden. When a patient transitions from a hospital, we help ease the process with smoother admissions and a care plan already in place.

A second team working with yours

Every hospice patient has their own dedicated team: a physician, registered nurse, certified nursing assistant, social worker and chaplain. We visit regularly, communicate closely with your staff and adjust the care plan as needs change. We’re not here to get in the way of your caregivers. We’re here to stand beside them.

That partnership matters most in difficult moments. When a resident destabilizes on a Friday evening, the alternative to calling hospice is calling 911. Hospice keeps residents comfortable and in familiar surroundings — sparing families the disorienting experience of an emergency transfer — and allows your team to deliver the care families are counting on.

Support for families

As a resident’s needs increase, so do the demands on your staff, including more family calls, goals-of-care conversations, questions about advanced directives and emotional support. It’s meaningful work that takes real time. Hospice social workers are trained specifically for these conversations. We serve as a consistent point of contact for families, answer their questions and provide emotional and bereavement support. That’s a direct reduction in the communication load your staff carries, and it often results in higher family satisfaction with your facility.

Help with compliance and wellbeing

Hospice adds a layer of documented, physician-directed oversight that supports your team when regulators ask how complex care needs are being met. We also provide support for facility staff, in-service training and continuing professional education. We understand that supporting your team is part of supporting your residents.

Ready when you are

The facilities that benefit most from hospice partnership reach out early when they have questions. We welcome conversations with administrators, whether or not any current residents are on hospice. Let’s start by talking about your facility and how we might help. It could make a meaningful difference for your residents, their families and your team.

Did You Know?

When a hospice partner is in place, assisted living facilities report:

• Fewer after-hours emergency calls
• Higher family satisfaction scores
• Reduced burden on staff

The conversation about partnership costs nothing — and it starts before any resident ever needs hospice care. Call us today: 1-877-462-1101.