Kerrville, TX – Throughout the month of November, Peterson Hospice will be joining organizations across the nation in hosting community activities recognizing National Hospice and Palliative Care Month (HAPCM). This year’s HAPCM theme is “Courageous Conversations.”
For more than 40 years, hospice has helped provide interdisciplinary, supportive care to millions of people, allowing them to spend their final months wherever they call home and surrounded by their loved ones. Hospice teams craft plans of care that ensure pain management, therapies, and treatments all center on the patients’ and their loved ones’ goals and wishes. Hospice care also provides emotional support and advice to help family members become confident caregivers and adjust to the future with grief support for up to a year.
“National Hospice and Palliative Care Month provides an opportunity for patients, providers, and community members alike to engage in advance care planning and other important discussions about the care they wish to receive when facing a serious illness before the time of crisis,” said Ben Marcantonio, COO and interim CEO of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO). We believe everyone deserves a good death, and the way to get there is through courageous conversations.”
Each year, more than one million Medicare beneficiaries receive care from hospices across the United States. When a patient is not eligible for hospice care, they may benefit from community-based palliative care, often offered by hospice providers. Palliative care is patient and family-centered care that optimizes quality of life by anticipating, preventing, and treating suffering. Palliative care throughout the continuum of illness also involves addressing physical, intellectual, emotional, social, and spiritual needs while facilitating patient autonomy through access to information and choice.
“When you engage in courageous conversations about end of life with your loved ones, it allows validation not only for their wishes at end of life, but also a beautiful conversation about what matters the most to them,” says Gretchen Rye, Community Outreach Coordinator for Peterson Hospice. “These conversations can be difficult to initiate, but November is a natural time to discuss gratitude and grace in a season of change. It was a gift my parents gave to me sharing what mattered to them at the end, and when the time came, I knew they were being cared for in the way they desired. It changed the dynamic from being a burden to a loving gift.”
More information about hospice, palliative care, and advance care planning is available at PetersonHealth.com or on NHPCO’s website at CaringInfo.org.