A Hospice House is really a home that will help people to live their last days fully, to heal emotionally, to say thank-you and good-bye.

Our Hospice House will create an environment that offers individuals and their families the opportunity to receive what they want from the last days of life.

Rowan Regional's Hospice House will bring our nearly 25 years of expertise in hospice care into the welcoming environment of a home setting.

This expertise adheres to a basic principle of hospice: to support people in living until they die.

At present, hospice home care patients in Rowan County who are in need of inpatient or residential care, either for more acute symptom control or pain management than can be provided in the home, or because they no longer have a capable caregiver in the home, must be admitted to an acute care bed, most often at Rowan Regional Medical Center, or, if available, to a nursing facility bed.

Neither hospitals nor nursing facilities are appropriate settings for hospice pateints who have opted to forego acute, curative treatments.

Rowan Regional's 14-bed Hospice House will provide all levels of hospice care including inpatient, residential and respite care in a home-like setting.

All 14 beds in the Hospice House will be built to inpatient standards to allow patients who require a transfer from one level of care to another during the course of their stay in the Hospice House to avoid having to be physically transferred from one bed or room to another.

LEVELS OF CARE

Rowan Regional Medical Center intends to provide all levels of hospice care in the new Hospice House, including inpatient, residential and respite care. Brief descriptions of each level of care follow:

Inpatient Care
Inpatient care is designed primarily to provide pain management and symptom control for hospice patients that cannot be adequately provided in the home.

This level of care is often used during the diagnosis, assessment and evaluation period, particularly as a patient is transitioning from a hospital setting to initial admission into our hospice program.

Inpatient care is also typically associated with end-stage care and generally has a relatively short length of stay. According to the Carolinas Center for Hospice and End of Life Care, the average inpatient length of stay in North Carolina in 10.2 days.

Residential Care
Residential care differs from inpatient care in that the services provided to the patient care those that would be provided by the hospice team in a patient's home. Residential care is designed for patients who either no longer have a primary caregiver at home and can no longer manage to safely care for themselves, or for those patients who have a caregiver at home who is no longer capable of providing the care required.

Residential care typically has a longer length of stay that inpatient care. The current North Carolina median is 48 days.

Respite Care
Respite care services are designed for short-term (up to five consecutive days) relief from the burdens of 24-hour care-giving for family members and loved ones.

OTHER HOSPICE SERVICES

As part of and in addition to the levels of care described above, Rowan Regional's new Hospice House will provide a wide range of services for patients as well as their families.

These services are currently provided by Rowan Regional Home Health and Hospice and will continue to be provided at the Hospice House.

Nursing Services
Nursing Services at the Hospice House will include pain and symptom management for patients, comfort measures, diet and medication review and frequent monitoring of the patient's physical status.

The nursing staff serves as the critical liaison between the patient and his or her physician. The nursing staff is responsible for regular communication with the physician regarding the patient's status to ensure that adequate and appropriate care is being provided.

The Hospice House will be staffed by registered nurses and certified nursing assistants 24-hours per day, seven days per week.

The nursing care needs of the patients will differ between patients receiving residential and inpatient services.

Social Work, Family Counseling and Bereavement
Social work, family counseling and bereavement services will continue when the patient is receiving inpatient and residential services at the new Hospice House.

Chaplaincy Services
Chapliancy services, already provided to all hospice patients, will continue while the patient is receiving inpatient or residential care at the Hospice House.

Volunteer Services
Volunteers are a key component of hospice care at Rowan Regional Medical Center.

If you are interested in being a Hospice Volunteer, please call 704-637-7645.

Physician Services
Ideally, hospice patients remain under the care of their personal physician while in a hospice house. However, for those patients who do not have an existing primary care physician, the physicians of Rowan Family Physicians serve in that role.

Ancillary Services
In addition to these services, Rowan Regional Medical Center will provide other services to patients in the Hospice House. These services may include home health aide, physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy and medical equipment.