The Vange John Memorial Hospice is Medicare-certified and has held a CMS 5-star rating for three consecutive years. The program admits new referrals within 7 days and maintains a live discharge rate of under 1%. The average length of stay is 16 days, slightly below the 2023 national average of 18 days.
Care is delivered in patients' homes, hospitals, assisted living facilities, and foster home settings across a 60-mile service radius. Pediatric cases are rare. Most common diagnoses include:
| Detail | Specifics |
|---|---|
| Structure | After-hours phone coverage shared with an NP on an every-other-week basis |
| Nature of Calls | Primarily responding to questions from hospice nurses |
| 24/7 RN Triage | Hospice RNs rarely escalate to the on-call provider overnight |
5 of 8 nurses hold Hospice and Palliative Care Certification. An NP manages day-to-day administrative tasks Tuesday through Thursday, reducing the physician's administrative burden significantly.
The full team meets once per week for approximately 2.5 hours and includes:
The program has an excellent working relationship with the oncology team, which is one of the primary referral sources and a natural partner for future palliative care program development.
There is a defined opportunity to develop a formal palliative care service for the hospital and cancer center. The hospice program itself is expected to continue growing in volume.