In the News

Caldwell Hospice and Palliative Care Ranks among the Best in US

(Published September 2011)

LENOIR—Caldwell Hospice and Palliative Care rates among the top hospices in the country, according to Family Evaluation of Hospice Care quarterly survey results by the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO).

Second-quarter results of the survey recently released by NHPCO show that Caldwell Hospice is among the top 10 percent of all hospices nationwide in 18 of 22 quality indicator results. In 14 of the quality indicators, Caldwell Hospice recorded a perfect score.

“While we always are looking to improve quality, we are pleased with these quarterly results,” said Cathy Swanson, executive director of Caldwell Hospice and Palliative Care. “The report is indicative of our outstanding and dedicated staff, as well as the organization’s commitment to staff development and ongoing continuous quality improvement.”

The report was developed by NHPCO with input from hospices that participate in data collection and reporting for the Family Evaluation of Hospice Care (FEHC) survey. Researchers and experts in quality measurement at the University of Pennsylvania and Brown University’s Center for Gerontology and Health Care Research collected and analyzed the data.

The FEHC report identifies opportunities for improvement. The survey used quality indicator questions and descriptive and screening questions. Survey responses from hospices that submitted FEHC data over the past two years were used to calculate benchmark scores.

The overall quality of care given to the patient at Caldwell Hospice during the second quarter of 2011, as perceived by primary caregivers, was 96.2, compared to 81.1 for hospices in North Carolina and 75.6 for hospices across the United States. The score represents the percentage of respondents who rated the quality of care as “excellent.”

The composite score is an overall measure of a hospice’s performance demonstrated as a single scoring range from 0 to 100. Caldwell Hospice’s composite in the second quarter of 2011 was 90.9, compared to 87.7 in North Carolina and 86.6 nationwide.

Domain performance represents a hospice’s performance in four key areas: coordinate care, attend to family’s needs, provide information about symptoms, and inform and communicate with patients. This performance is presented as a “problem score,” with zero noting no problems. Below are Caldwell Hospice’s domain performance numbers, followed by North Carolina and national figures:

• Coordination of care – Caldwell (0.0), N.C. (6.3), U.S. (7.3)
• Attend to family needs – Caldwell (0.0), N.C. (4.2), U.S. (5.1)
• Provide information about symptoms – Caldwell (0.0), N.C. (4.0), U.S. (4.9)
• Inform and communicate with patients – Caldwell (2.0), N.C. (13.2), U.S. (16.0)

“I am very proud of our staff,” Swanson said. “I’m also proud that Caldwell Hospice is part of this community. Thanks to our employees, volunteers, board members, healthcare providers, and supporters throughout Caldwell County, we are able to provide the highest quality of care in a loving, compassionate atmosphere for the terminally ill, their caregivers, and families.”
 

 

Caldwell Hospice’s Grief Camp:
A Family’s Story

(Published April 2011)

The relationship that Hayley Cole and her nine-year-old daughter Zoey share is grounded in love and appreciation. Hayley smiles when Zoey announces that “I want to be famous when I grow up.” Then Hayley recounts their history with grief, loss, and the support given to them by Caldwell Hospice and Palliative Care.

After Hayley’s mother Vickie Allred died in 2006 at Caldwell Hospice’s Stevens Patient Care Unit, she made good use of Ashewood Grief and Counseling Services’ bereavement support. When she attended programs intended to serve adults, Hayley brought Zoey along. Chaplain Steve Butler told Haley about Ashewood’s annual day-camp for children between the ages of six and 12 who have lost a loved one to death. At the time, Zoey wasn’t old enough, so Haley filed the information away. The next year, she made sure that Zoey was registered to attend. Now a three-time veteran of Good Mourning Children’s Grief Camp—which Zoey refers to as “Nanny Camp,” Zoey is ready for this year’s camp, scheduled for May 7th: “I think I’m gonna meet new kids this year!”

At Grief Camp, Caldwell Hospice’s staff members and specially trained volunteers use arts and crafts, games, storytelling, journal-writing, and the children’s interaction with each other to help them explore their grief and learn how to live with it. The children made their own wind chimes at last year’s Grief Camp. Zoey remembered that her grandmother “collected wind chimes, and her favorite color was purple,” Haley said. “It was so pretty. We hung it in the house, so it would be protected from the weather. It’s hanging over a vent, so when the furnace or A/C fan cuts on, we hear it.”

Each year’s program is based on a theme. As a parent, Hayley’s favorite was “Roadtrip Adventures” because “it was a map of what happens during the grief journey; it helped us know what to expect.”

Hayley welcomes the meeting time set aside in the afternoon for parents and guardians: “It offers them the main idea of what the children have done, what the theme is.” Knowing what the children have learned and carrying home their theme-based crafts, she said, can “opens doors for the whole family to talk at home, to build off that day’s experiences.” Having attended these sessions for the past three years, Hayley believes in their usefulness.

Sometimes, adults try very hard to shield children from the pain and sadness of losing someone who matters to them—parent, grandparent, sibling, or friend. They worry that talking about death may upset the child. Caldwell Hospice invites children to its annual Grief Camp because, in Hayley’s words, “Grief Camp is not like how people think of therapy; the staff is not intrusive—it’s like play therapy.”

When the grief is deep and difficult, Grief Camp “helps families recognize signs that a child might need further counseling to cope with the loss,” Hayley said.

“While the focus is on the kids,” Hayley stated, “its lessons apply to anyone—not in a threatening way. It creates a safe way to help the children or other family members who are experiencing grief.”

Attending Grief Camp for the past three years has made a big impression on Zoey. She will be a camper as long as she is eligible, and then—she is already planning to become one of Caldwell Hospice’s volunTEENS (ages 14 to 17), so she can help the younger children: “I don’t want the little kids to be shy.”

The 2011 Grief Camp is set for Saturday, May 7, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., at United Presbyterian Church, Pennell St., Lenoir. This year’s theme is “The Colors of Grief.” Hayley and Zoey Cole are looking forward to all the day’s events, especially the balloon release at the close of the day. So take their word for it: Grief Camp “is a playful, busy day with an opportunity to remember family members and know that what the children are feeling is real.”

This year’s Grief Camp sponsors are Greer-McElveen Funeral Home and Crematory and a special friend to Caldwell Hospice. For information or to pre-register a child you know who might want to attend, please call 754.0101.

Editor’s Note: Zoey wants readers to know that she is Lenoir’s Main Street Junior Idol for 2011, so she’s well on her way to being famous!
 

Understanding Your Suicide Grief

(Published February 2011)

In counseling terminology, “complicated grief” refers to situations—such things as divorce, estrangement of siblings, extreme remorse following an argument prior to the loved one’s death—that make families’ grief after the loss of a loved one harder to absorb. One of the most powerful and least-discussed circumstances follows the death of a loved one by suicide. Shame, guilt, and embarrassment discourage many people from talking at all—and family members need to talk, as part of coming to terms with the loss, the emotions, the profound changes that result from the death and will follow them for years to come.

People can go for years not discussing a death by suicide with anyone outside the immediate family—if they even discuss it within the family. Friends and neighbors may be reluctant to mention the person, the person’s death, or memories of the person, afraid they might hurt anyone’s feelings by bringing up a “sore subject.” The silence becomes deafening, and the emotional wounds may never heal.

Rev. Marcus Ollis, pastor of St. John’s Lutheran Church in Hudson, knows suicide survivors’ complicated grief very well. When his church hosted an eight-week grief support program with Caldwell Hospice’s chaplain Dr. Steve Butler as the lead facilitator, the two ministers learned that every participate was a suicide survivor. The program brought healing at a level that neither one had anticipated. One assignment, writing a letter to the person who had died, was especially helpful. “The participants broke through their isolation and ministered to each other,” Rev. Ollis said. By the program’s conclusion, they were more able to talk and remember in a healthy way.

Survivors’ shame is one of the first responses, Rev. Ollis says. They are afraid of how others will react to the death. Guilt is common, as survivors wonder what they missed, what they might have done differently, etc. Survivors feel anger and betrayal, wondering why their loved one did this; they may feel abandoned by the loved one, too. It can be hard to remember the person’s life apart from the person’s death, as if the death is all that matters.

Rev. Ollis says a breakthrough takes place when survivors are able to talk, when they are “given permission” to express their feelings, tell their memories, and grieve in their own way. He says that some family members have been grieving for years without talking to others. He recommends that friends and family members “check in” with survivors more frequently than they would if it were a “regular” death.

To friends, co-workers, and family members, Rev. Ollis says

• Surround the survivors with love and concern.
• You don’t have to say anything—just be there and listen; it can help you to know what to say.
• Be sensitive to what’s happening in their lives.
• Tell your memories of the person who died—funny stories, favorite sayings, shared experiences. Family members may be starved to hear something good about—and unrelated to the death of—their loved one.

To the survivors, Rev. Ollis says:

• Ask for help because you’re not alone.
• You may be feeling alienated, but there is help.
• Your pain can be lessened.
• You can learn ways to grieve in a healthy way.
• There are people who care, who want to help, who will listen without judging.

 

 

Veterans Honoring Veterans

(Published October 2010)

Caldwell Hospice Volunteer Coordinator Dawn Cannon and Caldwell County Veterans Honor Guard (CCVHG) commanding officer Bob Scherer, who also serves as a Caldwell Hospice volunteer, worked for nearly six months to develop a meaningful way to recognize our patients who are veterans of military service.

The new program, Veterans Honoring Veterans, was introduced to Caldwell Hospice staff and volunteers at a Robbins Center breakfast in early October 2010. The program included a “presentation of colors,” the playing of “Taps,” and an explanation of how the recognition service will be presented to patients.

When patients are admitted to Caldwell Hospice, their social workers will ask them or their primary caregiver about military service, including branch of service. A military veteran volunteer will be assigned, if available. Service information will be included in those patients’ charts, etc.

Volunteer Coordinator Dawn Cannon will arrange with the veterans group, the patients, and their families a time to meet—it can be informal or they can invite their families to be present, if they wish. They will receive a certificate identifying their service branch, an American flag lapel pin, and a small American flag.
 

 

Remebering Mr. Forlines

(Published August 2010) 

Caldwell Hospice and Palliative Care’s staff, volunteers, and board members mourn the passing of John A. Forlines, Jr., in July 2010 at the age of 92. Mr. Forlines served as treasurer for Caldwell Hospice’s Board of Directors from the organization’s beginning in 1982. He rarely missed a board meeting; in fact, he attended and gave a financial report for the final time, just two weeks prior to his death.

During Caldwell Hospice’s two-year-long capital campaign to finance construction of the Jack and Shirley Robbins Center in Hudson, North Carolina, Mr. Forlines continued raising funds. Only two weeks prior to his death, he solicited and accepted a $500,000 individual contribution. In gratitude for his service to the organization, the new 12-bed patient care unit will carry his name: the Forlines Patient Care Unit.

Mr. Forlines was an Alamance County, North Carolina, native and Duke University graduate. He joined the Bank of Granite in 1954 as President and Chairman of the Board of Directors. He made his mark throughout North Carolina and national banking institutions, as well as with individual customers and small business owners.

He created the Hospice/ACC Basketball Benefit Luncheon and Mini-Auction to raise money for Caldwell Hospice. It tallies approximately $80,000 each year for Caldwell Hospice’s end-of-life programs. Mr. Forlines created the Caldwell Hospice Foundation to guarantee the availability of hospice care, regardless of economic conditions.

When Caldwell Hospice planned the state’s first free-standing inpatient unit, Mr. Forlines’ commitment was essential. State legislators did not understand the necessity for providing an alternative to homecare (other than hospitals and nursing homes) when hospice patients needed pain relief and caregivers needed rest. He made the case to the banking industry’s lobbyists. Caldwell Hospice was privileged to serve Mr. Forlines during his last days in our Kirkwood patient care unit.

The Caldwell Hospice Board established the John A. Forlines, Jr., Distinguished Service Award in 2002; he received North Carolina’s Order of the Long Leaf Pine, Duke University’s University Medal for Distinguished Meritorious Service, the North Carolina Democratic Party’s Terry Sanford Lifetime Achievement Award (to date, he is the sole recipient of this honor), the National Hospice Foundation’s Volunteer of the Year Award, Financial World Magazine’s CEO of the Year Award for banks $300-$500 million in assets, and many other recognitions.

Caldwell Hospice and Palliative Care’s board of directors, staff, and volunteers will treasure Mr. Forlines’ dedicated service, deep belief in our mission, and dynamic personality for as long as we provide end-of-life care.