UCLAH Provides Expert Home Hospice in Los Angeles and Beyond
When a loved one is declared terminally ill, everything changes. The illness can no longer be treated, and all efforts are dedicated to the comfort of the patient. This change from treatment to comfort care comes with a mental and emotional change in the patient and her family, who now devote their efforts to providing a positive, hopeful end-of-life experience. With UCLA Hospice in Los Angeles residents can ensure that their terminally ill loved ones receive top-quality, dignified care in their homes, reducing stress for everyone involved and allowing the family to form lasting positive memories.
End-of-life does not have to be full of despair and pain. Dedicated hospice staff can provide physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual care in accordance with the patient’s needs. Every patient is different, so every health care plan must be different, too. UCLAH is ready to support you and your family, so contact us, tell us your needs, and we can come up with a plan that will allow your terminally ill loved one to live life to the fullest.
Our Staff
If a hospice is supposed to provide whole-patient care, then there must be a wide variety of professionals to provide different aspects of care. UCLAH is proud to employ dedicated, compassionate staff in many disciplines, who will all work together to give our patients the best possible care.
Starting a hospice in one’s home can be a delicate, difficult process. Many family members of patients worry that hospice staff will somehow replace family members in their roles as caregivers. This does not happen; we acknowledge that family caregivers shoulder most of the burden of caring for their terminally ill loved ones, and our job is to support those family caregivers by providing expert advice and treatment and by giving them a chance to rest and attend to their own needs.
Providing hospice care at home properly requires a lot of specialized professionals. Our expert staff works together to support the family caregivers at the center of the health care team.
Our physicians oversee the patient’s care and prescribe medications and other therapies. Many patients have a family doctor they would like to continue seeing, and we’re happy to include that doctor in the health care plan.
Nurses are frequent visitors to patients’ homes, regularly checking vital signs and listening to complaints, and making sure that the care we’re providing is the best possible.
Home health aides visit patients several times a week to assist with day-to-day living. Since they are such frequent visitors, patients and aides often form close social bonds.
A variety of therapists help patients live their lives to the fullest. Physical therapists help patients maintain strength and range of motion, lessening pain and enhancing mobility. Occupational therapists help patients do the things they love best. Respiratory therapists can alleviate shortness of breath. Speech therapists help patients communicate and swallow.
Social workers provide patients and families with clerical assistance, helping them access Medicare benefits and other resources. They can also help the patient formulate wills and advance directives, and can direct families to grief counseling.
Hospice chaplains provide spiritual and emotional support to patients, allowing them to vent frustrations, discuss the meaning of life, or just chat with a sympathetic ear.
Supporting Families
The burden of caring for an ill person can be overwhelming for even the most dedicated and loving family member. In addition to scheduled visits from the team members mentioned above, we can provide additional hospice services to family caregivers.
- Our 24/7 helpline: in times of crisis, you cannot wait for the next scheduled nurse visit. A nurse is always available for your call, ready to give advice over the phone or send assistance to your home as soon as possible.
- Respite care: if family caregivers fall ill or are overwhelmed with fatigue, we can transport the patient to a Medicare-approved facility, continuing our top-quality care there. Medicare covers respite care for up to five days at a time.
- Concierge physicians: for families who want the closest possible care for their ill loved one, we have concierge physicians on staff, who will, for a fee, perform house calls on demand.
- Grief counseling: grief is complicated, and it develops and changes during a patient’s terminal illness. To help family members cope, counseling is available during all stages of the patient’s illness and continues past death.
- Resource assistance: our social workers can sort out Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurance, search for veterans’ and other benefits, advise you about wills and advance directives, and organize funeral services.
Medical equipment is delivered right to your home, and our nurses and therapists will educate family members on how to safely use them to benefit the patient.
Home Hospice Is the Best Choice
A hospice doesn’t have to be in a nursing home or hospital room. Medicare covers hospice no matter where it takes place. Of course, people want to spend their last months in their comfortable homes, surrounded by family, rather than a sterile hospital room, surrounded only by beeping machines. UCLAH believes that the home environment is what’s best for the mental well-being of terminally ill patients, and we further believe that a home hospice can provide care equal to anything you can find in a hospital or nursing home.
If one of your loved ones is diagnosed with a terminal illness, it is critical that you start hospice treatment right away. Too many people delay the start of hospice, perhaps in a misguided notion that this might delay the inevitable; without exception, these people later wish that they had contacted a hospice provider sooner. With the help of UCLA Hospice, Los Angeles residents can fill their last days with joy and hope. Get in touch and tell us what you need, and we’ll put our expert staff together to work out the best possible health care plan for your ill loved one.