Preserving the Legacy of Hospice To Protect End-of-Life Care in the U.S. Click on the image or the PDF to download the white paper. Hospice leaders believe the key to meeting the needs of patients at the end of life…
FOUNDATION 1: Patient-Centered, Whole-Person Care The hallmark of compassionate end-of-life care is to treat each patient as an individual, listen to his or her needs, and recognize that dying is not just a physical process but an experience of the…
FOUNDATION 2: Physician-Patient Communication There is a definite lack of physician-patient communication about death and dying, a conclusion supported by the Dying in America report, which named it “the most striking area in need of quality improvement”22 for patients nearing the…
FOUNDATION 3: Provider Education Creating a positive culture in which compassion and science merge is rooted in providing education to physicians about care of the dying. Dr. Saunders encouraged her fellow physicians to find a “new criterion of success” in…
FOUNDATION 4: Research Scientific research on pain management and best practices of care for the dying are key components on which the hospice movement was built. Dr. Saunders combined scientific rigor with the wisdom gained at the bedside of her…
SUMMARY Dame Cicely Saunders’ legacy of merging compassion and science—heart and mind—must be preserved because neither facet alone is sufficient to meet the challenges the healthcare system faces in caring for the dying. Compassion alone cannot sort out the best…