Circles of Influence
Highlights of the Continuing Journey of Past Circle of Life Winners
2004
Organization: Hope Hospice and Palliative Care, Fort Myers, FL, now known as Hope HealthCare Services. The new name better emphasizes its enhanced circle of care and new long-term care services. Innovation highlights associated with the award included palliative care open access, outreach to long-term care, and effective physician relations strategies.
Recent Achievements: Since receiving the Circle of Life Award, Hope has added a number of new long-term care services in addition to hospice and bereavement care. The organization now cares for nearly 3,000 people each day and their families through patient-centered hospice and bereavement services, as well as new programs which include:
Hope PACE: A Medicare/Medicaid Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly that provides a total healthcare solution for people 55 and older, enabling them to maintain independent living;
Hope Choices: Long-term, at-home care provided by Medicaid and the Florida Department of Elder Affairs for people 65 and older whose goal is to remain in their own home;
Hope Connections: Home-based independent living for people 60 and older;
Hope Comfort Care: Counseling, pain and symptom management for people of all ages with serious illness;
Hope Parkinson Program: Services and activities for people living with Parkinson's Disease and their care partners, to help them experience fullness of life;
Hope Kids Care: Help for children coping with grief or a serious illness of their own or a loved one's.
By design, Hope's programs of care can be replicated by other healthcare organizations to meet the needs of the community - offering the specialized care and comfort.
Award Impact: The 2004 Circle of Life Award garnered positive community reaction and increased awareness of the value of Hope's innovative programs. It reinforced Hope's respected brand and helped to strengthen relations with hospitals, nursing homes, assisted living facilities, other healthcare organizations and the community at large. Hope continues to build on that foundation in developing collaborative programs.
The Circle of Life award application process required thoughtful introspection and self-evaluation, enabling Hope to better articulate its work and goals.
Organization: St. Mary’s Healthcare System for Children, Bayside, NY. The organization was cited for it palliative care pathways, early intervention program for infants, and development of peaceful dying plans with families.
Recent Achievements: The organization continues to spread services throughout and it has been successful in bringing its staffing model into its regular interdisciplinary teams—educating existing social work and nursing staff in palliative care. It still uses an integrated bed model. A palliative care consultant, who helps with pain and symptom management for children receiving palliative care, also trains staff who work with other children. Staff has been trained to incorporate complementary and alternative medicine for all patients—yoga, aromatherapy, and reiki, for example. A new trained-volunteer doula program provides the child and parent support at the end of life. The organization has also increased program evaluation rigor.
The facility is working toward palliative care for all children.
The organization has, over the past few years, focused on disseminating its three-tiered care model, presenting papers at palliative care conferences and an international hospice conference.
Award Impact: The Circle of Life Award gave such pride within the organization and improved its ability to promote its program and to maintain philanthropic funding. The external recognition reinforced its own sense of achievement and pride and increased staff motivation. The Circle of Life is a sign of national recognition and excellence…a seal of approval. It gave internal confidence and is wonderful to communicate to funding organizations.
Organization: University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center Symptom Control and Palliative Care Program, Houston, TX.
This cancer center’s program of a palliative care consult team and an inpatient unit incorporated palliative care earlier in the disease process and alongside curative care. Innovative highlights included bus rounds with local hospices, no waiting room in the outpatient palliative care center, and strong research and publications.
Recent Achievements: The program now has an inpatient unit, outpatient service, and mobile consulting team. Since receiving the Circle of Life Award, program visits have grown 17-18 percent each year and the program now uses ten palliative care physicians. With a 2008 change to a supportive care center outpatient unit, the service is continuing to move upstream closer to a diagnosis, seeing earlier patient referrals.
Award Impact: The cancer center’s staff had increased confidence in referring patients to the Symptom Control and Palliative Care Program—the award validated the program’s quality to University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center colleagues and heightened internal awareness, leading to greater confidence in making referrals. Externally, many cancer center visitors know about the Circle of Life Award and request to observe the palliative care program.
Award funds were spent primarily on education for staff and for families.
The application process forced the program to define itself and to establish monitoring/evaluation measures. It identified areas where the program needed to focus to keep up with other leading programs.