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Image Above: HopeWest Care Center

We live in a world where healthcare leaders must move as fast as they can to keep up with the changes that confront them daily.  It is easy to get so caught up in the budget shortfalls, the regulations, the competition and so much more, that the actual work done by the hospice staff may be overlooked.

My friend Christy Whitney Bourchard, CEO at HopeWest in Grand Junction, Colorado sent me this story written by one of their nurses working in their Hospice Care Center (HCC). I was struck by her honesty and eloquence in sharing a day in her life at work. It is a beautiful reminder of the fact that death is so much more than a medical event. Hospice workers face multiple losses and deaths every day while supporting families through one of life’s most difficult times, then they must try to cope with their own emotions over what they have witnessed.

The author, hospice nurse Barb Hedges said late one night she wrote down her thoughts from that...

I was touring a hospice care center when the smell of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies drew me to the kitchen, where I found a group of girls from the local high school. They told me that once a week they come to bake cookies for the families and patients in the care center. What a terrific way to enable young people to express their budding instincts to serve – and to create ardent ambassadors for hospice in the community.   

When I’m assessing a hospice program, one key measure of quality is the number of active volunteers and their level of involvement. How many volunteers do you have? What kind of things do the volunteers do for hospice? How long have they been volunteering? As we move forward in this new world of hospice and health care reform, volunteers are going to have an even greater impact on the lives of people who are facing serious illness and death. 

What kind of person is likely to volunteer at a hospice? Most often, volunteers will be...