Home Health and Hospice
Many years ago, patients who were very sick chose to stay at home and only went to the hospital as their last option. House doctors and nurses provided more treatments in home settings than hospitals during the early nineteenth century.
Home Health
Many years after that, several environmental factors including poverty, diseases, and growing cities put a strain on home health organizations. Present day patients have more complications than patients from two centuries ago. Complications of caring for patients with declining health are becoming more common today. Many unresolved issues in home health nursing have become a major concern in the United States. Private duty nursing was created to continue care from the hospital
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Most hospice care takes place in the patient’s home, but can also be provided in hospice centers, hospitals, and long term care facilities. The word “hospice” was first used by physician Dame Cicely Saunders to describe specialized care for dying patients. She began working with the terminally ill in 1948, and eventually created the first modern hospice in London (St. Christopher’s Hospice) in 1967. Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross published “On Death and Dying,” based on interviews with more than five hundred dying patients in 1969. The book identified five stages that terminally ill patients go through, and it was an international best seller. Dr. Kubler-Ross advocated for home care rather than an institutional setting by arguing that patients should have a choice in making the decision that affect their destiny. In 1972, Dr. Kubler-Ross testified at the first national hearings on Death with Dignity, conducted by the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging. The first U.S. hospice was founded in 1974, “Connecticut Hospice” in Branford, Connecticut. A few years later in 1980, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals (JCAHO) was awarded a grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to investigate the status of hospice and to develop standards for accreditation. Hospice accreditation is initiated by JCAHO in 1984. Hospice is now an accepted part of the health care continuum. In 1993, hospice is now included as a national guaranteed benefit under President Clinton’s health care reform proposal. Major grant makers begin pouring money into research and program initiatives to transform the culture of dying and improve end-of-life