Hospice With Heart

By Daisy Hutzell-Rodman

Southwest Iowa residents who need 24-hour care in the last days of their lives can rest assured that their needs will be met at Hospice With Heart.

Hospice is a special form of comfort care for people at the end of their lives. To be eligible for hospice care, a doctor must certify that a person has no more than six months to live and the person can not be treated for their ailment. It is the only Medicare benefit that includes pharmaceuticals, medical equipment and access to comfort care 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Hospice With Heart began as the dream of Dawn Stane, a certified hospice and palliative care nurse and the director of operations at the facility located on the grounds of the Glenwood Resource Center.

“I had worked for corporate hospitals and I wanted to start a place that was more focused on quality than quantity,” Stane said.

In November 2004, Hospice With Heart became incorporated, and in April 2005, it became Medicare/Medicaid certified. Stane’s dream became a reality.

“I’d never started a business before, so I really went out on a limb,” Stane said. “The fact that we’ve been here for 10 years, knowing all the patients we’ve taken care of, that really makes me happy.”

Last week, Stane announced that Hospice With Heart has joined a partnership with HCI-VNS Care Service Inc. out of Des Moines. HCI-VNS is a freestanding nonprofit that will be able to help Hospice With Heart with administrative functions.

Hospice With Heart began as a home-based treatment program, but Stane’s wish was always for a permanent hospice house where patients could be served.  Phil Warren of Glenwood was instrumental in making this happen.

“When I met Phil, he wanted to be a volunteer. I talked to him about my wish for a hospice house, and he started looking,” Stane said.

“It took a little over two years,” Warren said.

He found the perfect spot right on the hill.

“The Resource Center used to have all clients in dormitory-style facilities,” Warren said. “Then in the 1960s and 1970s, there was a belief that they needed residences, so they built 30-plus buildings, and then the thought was that most of them should be in the community.”

Warren discovered that the Resource Center was leasing their empty houses to nonprofits, and thus secured a space for the hospice house.

“We had to pay for a remodel, so we went on a fundraising campaign,” Warren said. “It took a little over two years to do that.”

Warren said he came up against some community members who were uninterested in helping fund a permanent hospice house, but he pushed forward undeterred.

“If I believe in something, I can support it whole-heartedly,” Warren said. “When people say no, I can help convince them.”

The Hospice With Heart House opened in July 2009.  In 2013, they served 37 families from the Mills County area.

Longtime Glenwood resident Betty Bales, who died Sept. 2, 2014, is one of the many people who Hospice With Heart has served.

“When you’re going through that very difficult time, things can change really quickly,” said Bales’ daughter Roni Score.  “When my mom was first diagnosed with Lymphoma less than one year before, I took care of her. As her health declined and her health needs increased, we took care of her at home as long as we could.”

Score, herself a school urse, took care of Bales through most of the summer, but turned to Hospice With Heart in August when she needed to return to work.

“I just can’t say enough about how much comfort it was to me and the rest of the family knowing that she was in good hands,” Score said. “The staff up there was just wonderful. We could go up there anytime we wanted and stay all night if we wanted. Our whole family could be there together, have a meal together, pray together. I always wonder about people who live far away, knowing how much of a comfort that was to us to know that she was just five minutes away.”

That comfort Score and her family received is another important aspect of Hospice. The Medicare benefit for hospice care includes support for loved ones following a death, and Hospice With Heart provides bereavement support for 13 months following a person’s death. Their staff includes a chaplain and a social worker.

“Our program includes a series of booklets,” Stane said. “We make follow-up phone calls.”
The care of the family begins when their loved one is in hospice.

“They tell you what’s going on every step of the way,” Score said. “When you start to see changes in your loved one, it can be very scary, but the people were able to explain that it was completely normal.”
Hospice With Heart has worked hard to create a comfortable atmosphere for patients at their house.
“Our intent is to make it as home-like as possible,” Warren said. “I know in my last days I would want to be at home, so this is as close to a home as we can make it.”

Those home-like touches include handmade quilts and convertible couches in each room so that visitors can stay overnight. A dining room is available for families to eat together.

“I remember one night we had a pizza party in her room,” Score said. “She loved pizza, and we knew that’s what she would want if she could, so we ordered pizza and had the kids there. We played music, we danced.”

Meals are catered by the Glenwood Resource Center.

Stane said she is a nurse at heart, and her primary focus has always been patient care, but increasingly, government regulations mean Stane has become more focused on administrative features.

“It’s hard to keep everyone’s focus on patient care when there’s so much paperwork to do,” Stane said.
With patient care at the top of her list, Stane found HCI-VNS Care Services to help.

“I had heard that another small local hospice that had a house out of Creston had joined with HCI, and I had been thinking about trying to make a change and partner with someone, so when I heard that, I contacted HCI about trying to partner with their company,” Stane said.

HCI chief operating officer Tray Wade is  enthusiastic about working with Hospice With Heart.

“They have a great reputation, our missions are aligned,” Wade said. “In conversations with Dawn, they have some high-quality values; we want to provide quality care for all their services.  Partnering with Hospice With Heart was a no-brainer, they do things the right way.”

Because of this, Wade said patients and their families should not see any differences to the quality of care given.

“We’ll have people to take care of the regulatory side,” Wade said. “I think one of the things we’ve seen in the last 10 years is an influx of providers. While many are great, we’ve seen a few bad players, and we’ve seen the government come in to play to make sure that hospices are compliant.”

That care and compassion in end-of-life care is important to a patient’s loved ones, and Score said she hopes people understand how important it is to have Hospice With Heart in southwest Iowa.

“I wonder if people realize how lucky we are to have hospice,” Score said. “For Glenwood to have its own hospice house, that’s huge. For people to have the option to die with dignity in a place like that is a blessing.”