PDF version - National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization

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3. Home Hospice Care (six
home hospice teams caring
for patients in private
residences, with one
designated exclusively for
pediatric patients).
Since it was first released,
we have used the guidelines
to analyze our needs and
appropriately budget resource
dollars for each of these three
service lines.(Gilchrist Kids is
excluded from this discussion
since it is staffed differently,
based on the experience of
pediatric-care colleagues around
the country.)
Some Influencing Factors
As part of the “prep” work that
should precede the analysis, we
considered factors unique to our
organization that will impact
staff caseloads. For example,
across our organization, there
are four particular features of our
programmatic design that heavily
impact staffing:
• We have a NEWS Crew that
covers nights, evenings and
weekends, and is staffed with
RNs, LPNs and, to a lesser
degree, supportive services.
This Crew is responsible
for responding to the prescheduled
and on-call needs
of our patients and families
after business hours and on
weekends.
• We also employ a designated
admissions team and
Hospital Liaison Crew seven
days per week to conduct
introductory visits and enroll
eligible patients on service.
• Our bereavement services
are provided by a designated
team of professionals separate
from the interdisciplinary
care team.
• And in late 2011, we
established a daytime triage
team to handle clinical calls
during business hours to
help reduce the number of
interruptions on field staff.
Given this programmatic design,
our primary care teams do not
provide bereavement services,
our clinical teams do not handle
admissions or provide 24/7
coverage (except on six holidays
per year), and our supportive
services staff has infrequent
after-hours responsibilities. That
said, additional discernment
by each of our service lines is
required—which I review next.
12 NewsLine