Adviser LeadingAge New York Winter 2014 Winter 2014 | Page 23

ENHANCING PARTNERSHIPS

Hospice and Palliative Care:
Personalized Services and
Caring Communities
By: Kathy McMahon, president/CEO, Hospice and Palliative Care
Association of New York State

The missions of LeadingAge New York and
the Hospice and Palliative Care Association
of New York State (HPCANYS) are closely
aligned. LeadingAge New York advances
policies, promotes practices and conducts
research that supports, enables and
empowers people to live fully as they age.
HPCANYS promotes the availability and
accessibility of quality hospice and palliative
care for all persons in New York State
confronted with life-limiting illness.
A newly formed affiliation between LeadingAge New York and
HPCANYS is aimed at enhancing partnerships between long term
care providers and hospice and palliative care providers to assure
that residents have access to quality end-of-life care.
Hospice is a Medicare and Medicaid benefit that uses a patient/
resident-centered, interdisciplinary team – physician, nurse, social
worker, home health aides, spiritual care, complementary therapies
and volunteers – model to care for individuals with a terminal
prognosis of six months or less if the disease runs its normal course.
In addition, hospice provides bereavement services for the family
(including nursing facility staff ) for 13 months after the death of the
resident. The majority of hospice care is provided in the patient’s
home – their own home, a friend or relative’s home, a hospice
residence, a nursing facility, an assisted living facility – wherever
home may be.
Partnering with community-based hospice and palliative care
providers is a “win-win” for facilities and the residents they serve.
As the just released Institute of Medicine Report, “Dying in
America” states: “People who meet the hospice eligibility criteria
deserve access to services designed to