Community Health - Hospice of the Heartland

Hospice of the Heartland services are provided to clients diagnosed with a terminal illness who can no longer benefit from curative treatment. The typical Hospice patient has a life expectancy of 6 months or less. Services are provided by a team of trained, local professionals—physicians, nurses, social workers, chaplains, pharmacists, dieticians, home health aides, and volunteers—who provide medical, care and support services not only to the patients but also to the entire family.

The purpose of Hospice is to enhance the quality of a patient’s and family’s life at home or in a home like setting. Hospice seeks to enable the patient to carry on an alert, pain-free life and to manage other symptoms, while recognizing that dying patients have special needs different from those whose treatment is designed to effect cure.

Referrals can be made by physicians, family members, friends, clergy, or health professionals. Clients may reside in Kossuth or Hancock County or a 35-mile radius of Algona.

How Hospice Works

Hospice services are available to persons who can no longer benefit from curative treatment; the typical Hospice patient has a life-limiting illness of six months or less. Services are provided by a team of trained, local professionals: physicians, nurses, social worker, chaplains, pharmacist, dietician, home health aides, and volunteers - who provide medical care and support services not only to the patent, but to the entire family.

Referrals can be made by physicians, family members, friends, clergy, or health professionals.

Guidelines for Admission

1. Patients must be diagnosed terminally ill.
2. Patients must have the approval of their primary physician.
3. Patients must have a responsible relative or friend available to assist with care-giving.
4. Patients are accepted regardless of type of disease, age, color, sex, race, religious affiliation, disability, or national origin.
5. Patients must reside in either Kossuth or Hancock counties or a 35-mile radius of Algona.

Program Characteristics

• Under the direction of a physician, Hospice offers palliative (comfort care) rather than curative treatment. Hospice uses sophisticated methods of pain and symptom control that enable the patient to live as fully and comfortably as possible.
• Hospice helps the person and family - not the disease. The interdisciplinary Hospice team is made up of professionals who address the medical, emotional, psychological and spiritual needs of the patient and family.
• Hospice emphasizes quality, rather than length of life. Hospice neither hastens nor postpones death: it affirms life and regards dying as a normal process. The Hospice movement stresses human values that go beyond the physical needs of the patient.
• Hospice considers the entire family, not just the patient, as the “unit of care.” Patients and families are included in the decision-making process, and bereavement counseling is provided to the family after the death of their loved one.
• Hospice offers help and support to the patient and family on a 24-hour a day/7 day a week basis. For Hospice patients and their families, help is just a phone call away. Patients routinely receive periodic in-home services of a nurse, home health aide, social worker, volunteers, and other members of the Hospice interdisciplinary team.

For more information, please contact Community Health at 515.295.2451 or 800.603.8433, ext 430.