Hospice Care Plan for Nurses

Care with dignity

Hospice care is a level of care provided to someone who is terminally ill. This care includes not only the patient but also the family of the patient. Using a team approach that encompasses spiritual and emotional support, medical care, pain management, and end-of-life decisions, the hospice plan of care allows nurses to focus on providing care to individuals that enables them to die without pain but with dignity.

Hospice History

Compassionate care

In early days, hospice was a place that offered rest and shelter to sick or tired travelers. Dame Cicely Saunders, a worker at St. Christopher's Hospice in London, came up with the word "hospice" in 1967 to mean a place to care for people who were dying. Hospice care is synonymous with compassionate and humane care for people in the end stages of an incurable disease.

Care Plan Participants

Teams Drive Care

Patient care in a hospice program is geared toward both the family of the patient and the patient. This care is performed by an interdisciplinary team that formulates and individualizes the plan for each patient as his or her care needs change. This team consists of social service professionals, spiritual counselors, nurses, physicians, volunteers, and even medical supply professionals. All of these team members help create the plan of care with the goal of helping to make patients as comfortable as possible towards the end of their lives.

Function of the Care Plan

Hospice Care Plan Focus

Care planning is a nursing process that includes planning, data collection, education, intervention, review or evaluation of any interventions, revision of the care plan if necessary, and focusing on measures that are comfort-based to provide patients a peaceful, pain-free ending to their lives.

Nursing care plan vs. hospice care plan

Many professionals help to develop individualized plans of care

The difference between a hospice care plan and a nursing care plan is that the hospice plan is interdisciplinary in nature. The interdisciplinary team works together, utilizing each of their specialized skills to assess the family and patient, contributing equally to the plan of care by blending these evaluations into one care plan.

Components of a hospice care plan

Medical chart

The key components of the care plan include the initial plan of care, the problem list, doctor's orders, and any inpatient hospitalization information. After the patient has undergone an assessment visit by a nurse, other team members will confer and develop the initial plan of care (IPOC) for the patient. Team members identify ongoing problems and put them on the problem list, assess and administer any medications that the physician may prescribe, noting the patient's response to them, and use any other records (inpatient stays etc.) to refine and evaluate the care plan.

Implementation and Evaluation

Plan of care evaluation

The hospice care plan is constantly being updated, implemented, and evaluated so that the needs of the patient are assessed and met by the interdisciplinary group. Both patients and their families are continuously assessed as the patient's illness progresses so that their quality of life is maximized while receiving hospice services.

References

• initial plan of care

Resources

• Mayo Clinic
• Caring Connections
• National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization