Home Health nurses provide skilled healthcare visits to people in their homes or foster homes. Services include nursing, physical, occupational and speech therapy, medical social services and a 24-hour on-call nurse.

Individuals who require periodic skilled healthcare visits and have difficulty leaving home are candidates for these Medicare-approved services. Home health requires an order from your physician.

Phone (541) 677-2384 for more information.

Hospice - Hospice provides support and care for persons in the last phases of incurable disease so that they may live as fully and comfortably as possible. Hospice recognizes dying as part of the normal process of living and focuses on maintaining life. Hospice affirms life and neither hastens nor postpones death. Hospice exists in the hope and belief that through appropriate care, and the promotion of a caring community sensitive to their needs, patients and their families may be free to attain a degree of mental and spiritual preparation for death that is satisfactory to them. (Standards of a Hospice Program of Care, National Hospice Association, 1993.)

To aid in decision making, we offer the following general guidelines. We welcome discussion and/or questions and understand the need to review patient status and needs on a case-by-case basis.

Hospice means...

• Life expectancy measured in months rather than years (specifically, six months)
• "No code" or "do not rescusitate" status discussed
• "Home" setting (inclusive of foster care facility, home, long-term care facility, or residential care facility)
• No 911...Hospice is the emergency contact for all interventions related to the terminal diagnosis
• Comfort, not cure
• No pursuit of aggressive treatment if the goal is the reversal of the terminal illness
• Team approach (physician-directed hospice staff)

With the premise of Hospice being to neither postpone nor hasten death, the following treatment options could be compatible with the Hospice philosophy.

• Excellent pain/symptom control
• Oral antibiotics
• Blood transfusions (once a week, or less frequently)
• Tube feedings (cautiously and if patient's sole source of nutrition)
• G-tubes (in particular cases for venting to relieve nausea and vomiting)
• Durable medical equipment to support changing needs
• Lab work to support symptom management
• Radiation treatment to relieve tumor pressure, pain, or obstruction
• Suction, decompression via nasogastric tube (rarely, due to trauma to patient) and excellent non-invasive means available to control symptoms.
• IV Hydration under special circumstances (rarely)