Teen Volunteers Enrich Suncoast Hospice's Mission

(left to right) Teen volunteer coordinator Fabiana Compas
greets new teen volunteers Shekeema Striggles and
 Kirstin Miller at an ice cream social at
our St. Petersburg community service center.

Suncoast Hospice teen volunteers provide invaluable service to our organization and family of programs. Their passion, creativity and commitment carry through in the many activities they’re involved in.

Many teens find joy in visiting our patients and families at their homes, our care centers and various other facilities in Pinellas County. They may hold celebrations, play music or sing at bedsides or make and deliver comfort items for patients. While others like providing support at our community service centers, resale shoppes or events. No matter what roles they take on, the teen volunteers learn, grow and enrich the lives of the people we serve. 

Teen volunteer Carrie Hall volunteers at our 2012
Gift Wrap & Trees of Love event at Tyrone Square Mall.

Are you a mid-Pinellas County teen interested in becoming a Suncoast Hospice teen volunteer? Come learn more at our teen volunteer open house on Sept. 10 at 6 p.m. at our Clearwater community service center. For more information, call 727-523-3431.

Want to see more about our teen volunteer program? Watch this video of the stories of four teens who have made a difference through their volunteer service.

 

Resale Shoppe Volunteer Gives All-Around Support

John tries out the DVD player.

John Zaccagnini zips around our Suncoast Hospice Resale Shoppe in Clearwater pitching in wherever he can. He answers the phone, tests a DVD player, helps a customer and starts cleaning the break room in preparation for closing.

John has been a dedicated volunteer at the store for four years. He works three days a week and sometimes on his days off doing the mechanical testing of items and practically anything else that needs to be done.

“I’m retired so I’ve got the time. I do everything. One of the greatest things about working here is you never know what’s going to come through those doors,” John said.

One of the beautiful pieces that John admires.

John has a background in hard work and an upbeat attitude. He’s a former, longtime police officer who raised a big family. He also previously served in another volunteer position at a soup kitchen.

Hospice has touched his life. His mother was cared for by a hospice in Massachusetts, which he’s grateful for because she didn’t suffer. He finds satisfaction volunteering for Suncoast Hospice.

“I work with a good bunch of people. I like to help and talk with the people who come in,” he said.

John and fellow volunteer Betty Hertlein sort inventory.

Want to help at at our resale shoppes in Clearwater, St. Petersburg or Tarpon Springs?

Call 727-467-7423 or visit our website to find out about our positions and apply.

POLST Captures End-of-Life Care Choices

By Tracy Christner
Project GRACE executive director



Tracy Christner

Very few of us want a state-of-the-art death. You know the kind – with high-tech, aggressive interventions, such as breathing machines and feeding tubes. These devices may keep you alive technically for weeks, months or even years. However, in some circumstances, such as a heart attack, many of us would want CPR. That's where the Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST) program comes in.

POLST is designed to help individuals in the last stages of life express their wishes regarding life-sustaining treatment. Suncoast Hospice will be the first hospice in Florida to offer POLST to its patients. The pilot will begin this fall after staff has been trained by Project GRACE, the Suncoast Hospice affiliate leading this effort.

Why POLST Is Needed

Just imagine an elderly man (Mr. M) with advanced dementia living in a nursing home.  His living will requests no CPR and no intensive care. He chose his daughter as his healthcare decision maker.

One Friday evening, Mr. M is found unresponsive with an irregular, weak pulse and extremely low blood pressure. The nursing home is unable to reach his daughter and emergency services are called. The paramedics arrive and Mr. M is resuscitated, intubated and transferred to the local hospital. His daughter learns what has happened and demands to know why his living will was not followed.

Completing a living will is often not enough to ensure that your wishes to have or limit medical treatment will be respected. Living wills are general statements of your preferences but need to be carried out through specific medical orders when the need arises. Without special arrangements, medical orders have limited authority outside of the institutions in which they are written. For example, a physician’s orders at the nursing home usually have no authority in the ambulance or hospital.

Mr. M needed a document with medical orders that were followed at each step of his care, from the nursing home to ambulance to emergency department to intensive care unit. That is what POLST does.

How POLST Works

POLST is an approach to end-of-life planning based on thoughtful, facilitated conversations between patients, loved ones and medical providers. It’s designed to ensure that seriously ill patients can choose the treatments they do and do not want based on their values, personal beliefs and current states of health.

POLST’s several advantages include:

• It’s signed by the healthcare provider. There’s no need for interpretation and translation because it’s an immediately actionable medical order.

• It’s easy to follow because it’s on a single-page, standardized form.

• Unlike DNR (do-not-resuscitate) orders, it addresses not just CPR but an entire range of life-sustaining interventions, such as IV fluids, antibiotics, feeding tubes and artificial breathing.

• It’s transportable. It remains in the patient’s chart and travels with the patient. It’s recognized and honored across all treatment settings.

POLST Provides Peace of Mind

We believe POLST to be the best tool to help our patients and their families achieve peace of mind through shared and informed medical decision making.

Just imagine if Mr. M and his physician had completed a POLST form with orders indicating “Do Not Attempt Resuscitation, Comfort Measures Only and Do Not Transfer to Hospital for Life-Sustaining Treatment.” The covering physician and daughter, who agree with the POLST orders, are called. The daughter understands that her father would be transferred to the hospital if his comfort needs cannot be met at the nursing home. The next morning, Mr. M dies in comfort at the nursing home surrounded by his daughter, other family members and the staff who know him well.

For more information on POLST or Project GRACE, visit www.projectgrace.org/POLST or call (727) 536-7364. You may also read more about POLST in Suncoast Hospice’s recent article in Tampa Bay Medical News.

Providing Spiritual Care At End Of Life

The end-of-life journey may touch the body, mind and spirit. Rev. Nina Douglas, a longtime Suncoast Hospice chaplain, helps patients and families at our care centers find spiritual peace by honoring their faith traditions.

Watch Nina discuss her spiritual care in this video.  

                                                                   

Suncoast Hospice Patient & Veteran Recipient of Honor Flight

Betty (left) receives a warm welcome home from
Daphni Austin, Suncoast Hospice veterans liaison.

The war memorials in our nation’s capitol generate great patriotic pride, especially among our military veterans. Suncoast Hospice patient Betty Schefter served as a medical secretary in the Women's Army Corp. She and several fellow World War II-era veterans went to see the World War II memorial on a recent trip to Washington, D.C. with Honor Flight West Central Florida. She’s one of 782 veterans, accompanied by guardians, who have traveled there in the past two years courtesy of the nonprofit organization. 

Betty’s care team registered nurse Maureen Diorio along with a group of other Suncoast staff and volunteers welcomed Betty back at the airport. She exited the plane last, beaming with joy and dressed in her pristine red, white and blue outfit prepared by her care team hospice aide Carol Hogan. 

“When I looked at this beautiful woman who had traveled the distance and been gone for more than 16 hours, two words came to mind: Betty Strong. We’re so proud of her,” Maureen said. 

Suncoast Hospice is proud to honor our local veterans through our many partnerships, including Honor Flight West Central Florida and Veterans History Project, which collects and archives interviews of wartime veterans.

If you’re interested in being a guardian or attending a welcome home celebration for Honor Flight, visit www.honorflightwcf.org.

Planned Giving Supports Suncoast Hospice’s Mission of Care

By Karen Van De Putte
Suncoast Hospice Foundation’s Planned Giving Director


Karen Van De Putte

Suncoast Hospice is a nonprofit, community hospice that’s committed to providing expert, compassionate care and services to patients and families as they face one of life’s most difficult journeys. Our Suncoast Hospice Foundation works to raise funds needed to serve our community. Estate planning (or planned giving) is one of the ways in which people can give to our foundation in support of Suncoast Hospice.

Through planned giving, you can make a significant gift in the future, which won’t impact you financially now. Some examples of how you can include Suncoast Hospice in your estate plan are:

• Include Suncoast Hospice in your will or trust. If you don’t have an estate plan in place, we can help you get started with it. If you already have one in place, you can do a codicil to your will or amendment to your trust that adds a bequest to Suncoast Hospice. 

• Charitable gift annuity. You can fund a charitable gift annuity now and then receive income guaranteed for the rest of your life. If there is anything left over at the end of your life, that amount stays with Suncoast Hospice. Rates of return are based on your age, and we can help you find out what rate you would receive at your age.

• Beneficiary designation. You can make Suncoast Hospice a beneficiary or partial beneficiary of your IRA, life insurance policy or investment, bank or money market account. You can usually do this with a simple, one-page beneficiary designation form, which you can request from your institution.

When you let us know you’ve made a planned gift to our foundation, you’ll become a member of our Parker Legacy Guild, which includes having your name put on our guild donor wall (with your permission) and an invitation for you and a guest to attend our annual, springtime Celebration of Caring dinner.

Thanks to all who have supported the Suncoast Hospice mission. 

If you’d like more information on or need assistance with planned giving, please call (727) 523-3422. 

You’re also invited to join us at our next panel discussion covering estate planning and other topics on Aug. 5 from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. at Suncoast Hospice’s Mary J. Labyak community service center, Garden House, in Clearwater. RSVP to Suzanne Pace at (727) 523-3417 or suzannepace@thehospice.org.

Suncoast Hospice Recognized for High–Quality Patient Care

By Laurie West
Suncoast Hospice director of quality and service

Laurie West

It was a big honor for Suncoast Hospice to receive Deyta’s 1st annual Hospice Honors Award this past spring. This award recognized our hospice as one of the top hospice agencies in the U.S. to provide the highest level of satisfaction in patient care as rated by the patients’ caregivers. 

We’re benchmarked nationally with the Family Evaluation of Hospice Care surveys, and to be honored as one of the top hospices for our patient and family satisfaction is remarkable. We’re committed to patient and family–centered care. The voices of our patients and families are extremely important. That’s what defines our care and leads us.

It touches my heart when I read the comments from our surveys. One common theme is  compassion. A lot also say, my loved one died at peace and my loved one died with dignity. Many also state, thank you for taking care of me, the caregiver.  

To me, this recognition shows that no matter what discipline you are, it’s what we all do together that touches our patients and families. From our physicians to our volunteers to our DME (durable medical equipment) drivers, we are all one team. 

Our care teams go above and beyond to provide compassionate care to our patients and families. I heard a recent story about one of our nurses who sat and held a patient’s hand and sang to that patient. Our staff and volunteers are always there to provide that wonderful human presence.  

Have you been touched by our care? Please share your story.