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Does Hospice Provide 24-Hour Care at Home?
Date Updated: December 9, 2024
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Dr. Brindusa Vanta is a health care professional, researcher, and an experienced medical writer (2000+ articles published online and several medical ebooks). She received her MD degree from “Iuliu Hatieganu” University of Medicine, Romania, and her HD diploma from OCHM – Toronto, Canada.
Hospice rarely provides 24-hour care at home, with family and friends providing most of the daily care for a dying person. However, hospice provides routine visits, and someone from the hospice team is always available by phone to advise or arrange assistance if needed.
Understanding Hospice Care
Hospice is a specialized service that offers comfort care for individuals approaching the end of their lives. This happens through managing symptoms and improving the patient's overall well-being by addressing physical, emotional and spiritual needs. It involves a collaborative team of health care and other professionals, including doctors, nurses, social workers and chaplains. To qualify for hospice care, a patient must be seriously ill with a prognosis of 6 months or less, and they must no longer be receiving curative treatments.
Levels of Hospice Care
Of the four levels of hospice care, routine home care is the most common. A family member or friend provides daily care at home with the guidance and support of the hospice team. Members of the team conduct routine visits and are on call 24/7. Hospice also provides the necessary medical equipment and medications for managing symptoms.
Other levels of hospice care include inpatient care, continuous home care and respite care, all of which are usually temporary arrangements.
- Inpatient care refers to care provided in a medical facility, where the hospice team treats acute pain or other symptoms. Patients return home when their symptoms are manageable in the comfort of their homes.
- Continuous home care refers to temporary 24-hour nursing care at home that manages out-of-control pain and other symptoms.
- Respite refers to care that gives a caregiver a break.
When Is 24-Hour Hospice Care at Home Necessary?
Continuous home care, also known as crisis care, provides short-term palliative care at home for a minimum of 8 hours and up to 24 hours within a 24-hour period. The primary objective of continuous home care is to provide palliation and manage uncontrollable pain or other acute symptoms. Members of the hospice team, usually nurses, work in shifts to attend to the patient until the crisis resolves and symptoms become manageable. One example of a symptom that may warrant continuous home care is the management of intractable pain with intravenous medications. A nurse who frequently assesses the patient’s condition provides this.