Hospice Care Services

Wounds are common in hospice eligible patients, and they may impact the patient’s quality of life and relationships with loved ones.

Many patients with terminal illnesses are known to present with wounds. Factors like frailty, impaired mobility, poor nutrition and incontinence often lead to development and increasing severity of wounds.

Wounds are often painful and unpleasant to patients. Wound symptoms, such as bleeding and odor, may discourage loved ones from spending as much time as they would like with the patient.

VNSNY Hospice offers Wound Care in a Hospice Setting—a specialized program providing evidence-based, individualized care to hospice eligible patients with wounds. Hospice wound care patients are overseen by wound care specialists in conjunction with the patient’s hospice integrated care team.

If a patient is hospice eligible and has wounds, referral to VNSNY Wound Care in Hospice Setting allows them to receive palliative wound treatment alongside all the other benefits of our Hospice service.

VNSNY’s Wound Care in a Hospice Setting offers:

• Compassionate wound care, consistent with Hospice goals and values
• Wound care individualized for each patient
• Collaborative approach with wound specialist participation
• Patient centered care
• Formulary including advanced wound care products

Over half of our patients experience wound healing with Wound Care in Hospice Setting.

The primary objective of Wound Care in Hospice Setting is increasing the comfort and quality of life of the patient. With a care plan focused on symptom relief and less aggressive treatment, over half of our patients experience wound healing.

For more information or to make a referral, call VNSNY Hospice and Palliative Care at 212-609-1900.

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is a progressive, non-curable disease that impacts over 15 million Americans.¹ It significantly reduces quality of life, with a high physical and emotional burden on both patients and caregivers, and is associated with excessive rates of hospital readmissions and ED visits, particularly as the disease progresses.² However, many end-stage COPD patients are not being connected to the appropriate level of care.

VNSNY COPD Hospice Care, the only program of its kind in the New York metro area, is a new, specialized hospice program designed for patients with end-stage COPD to improve quality of life and reduce hospitalizations and ED visits.  At its core is an interdisciplinary team of VNSNY hospice specialists, including an Advanced Practice Nurse, Respiratory Therapist, Hospice Specialty Aide and Team Physician, as well as expertise as needed from a Registered Nurse, Social Worker, Spiritual Care Counselor and Nutritionist. Also integral to the team are Hospice volunteers, who are available to provide support and companionship.  The VNSNY Hospice team works with patients and their families to create an individualized care plan, including symptom management and education on techniques to decrease anxiety, to ensure patients’ goals-of-care are met.

Download the VNSNY COPD Hospice Care Program Guide to read more about this program.

For more information or to make a referral, call VNSNY Hospice and Palliative Care at 212-609-1900.

^{1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. www.cdc.gov/copd/index.html     2. Shah, T et al. COPD Readmissions: Addressing COPD in the Era of Value-based Health Care.CHEST.2016 Oct;150(4):916-926} 

Advanced cardiac conditions, especially heart failure, profoundly impact patients, providers, and health systems. It is a leading cause of hospitalizations among patients over 65, and its prevalence is growing.¹

To fill this important gap in care, we created the VNSNY Cardiac Hospice Care Program—the only one of its kind offered throughout the five boroughs of New York City. It uniquely features an interdisciplinary care team with special training in managing advanced-stage cardiac patients. The team, including a cardiac nurse practitioner, hospice specialty coach, and hospice medical director, works collaboratively with the patient’s cardiologist and PCP to provide an enhanced level of care for patients and families.

For more information, download the VNSNY Cardiac Hospice Care Program Guide.

^{1 Chen-Scarabelli, C, Saravolatz, L, Hirsh B, et al. Dilemmas in End-stage Heart Failure, Journal of Geriatric Cardiology, 2015.}

The Veterans Program from VNSNY Hospice Care combines compassionate care and clinical best practices to provide specialized medical, spiritual, and emotional support to address the unique needs of veterans and their families.

VNSNY Hospice Care is proud to have achieved the We Honor Veterans Partner Level Five status, the highest level a hospice provider can achieve. This distinction was granted by the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization, and acknowledges our dedication to ensuring that veterans have access to quality hospice care. VNSNY is the only hospice provider serving all five boroughs to achieve Level Five We Honor Veterans status.

In addition to the benefits that VNSNY Hospice Care provides, individuals in the Hospice Care for Veterans Program also receive:

• Care provided by a team of experts, many of whom are veterans themselves
• Help in identifying veteran-specific benefits and connecting to additional community services, as needed
• Special recognition ceremonies including family and friends
• Assistance in the planning of military memorials
• Access to grief support groups and bereavement program for patients’ families

For more information, download the VNSNY Hospice Veterans Program Guide.

Historically, the benefits of hospice care have been under-utilized, in particular by African-American communities. There are many reasons for this disparity, but the overriding one is simply lack of awareness.

To help ensure that all of our referring partners’ patients have ready access to end-of-life care when it’s needed, VNSNY Hospice Care has developed a pilot outreach program named HOPE (Hospice Outreach Patient and Provider Education) to spread awareness of home hospice services among the largely African-American community of Harlem.

VNSNY HospiceCare is part of an elite group that has met SAGECare’s highest level of LGBT Cultural Competency Training, providing our team with the insights and expertise to meet the needs of this underserved community. SAGE is the country’s largest and oldest organization dedicated to improving the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) older adults through advocacy and services.