Hospice of Missoula provides holistic care to ensure our patients and their families have the highest quality of life. Our four areas of care are medical/palliative, social, spiritual, and personal. These elements of care work together to allow our patient and their families share intimate, loving memories in this important stage of life. Our dedicated and experienced interdisciplinary staff work together with our patients and patients' families to provide excellence in end of life care. Whether one seeks spiritual guidance, pain or symptom management, or simple house work, Hospice of Missoula will continue to charitably give back your lives. Hospice of Missoula also works closely with medical facilities to provide respite for caregivers. In addition, Hospice provides medications, supplies, equipment, and additional helpers in the home as needed.
The hospice team includes nurses, home health aides, social workers, trained volunteers, chaplains, a physician, and a bereavement coordinator. Following are descriptions of the kind of work they do.
Nurse
Home Health Aide
Social Worker
Physician
Chaplain
Volunteer
Music Clinician
Nurse
RN's and LPN's asess the patient's condition, educate the family/caregiver and help with the management of pain and symptom control. A 24 hour "on-call" service is provided, seven days a week.
Home Health Aide
Hospice of Missoula offers comprehensive personal care for patients and their families. Aides provide such services as personal hygiene care, bathing, and light housekeeping. Our aides also provide conversation companionship when loved ones are not around as well as personal care items such as fingernail painting and light massage when wanted.
Social Worker
When a referral is made, on of the first members of the team to visit the patient and famiy is the social worker. In the first meeting, the social worker will assess the psychological and social needs of the patient and family. Our social worker will ensure emotional, social and psychological comfort through the end of life process. The goal is to provide emotional support for families and help with crisis intervention and prevention. The social work team also takes care of Comfort One issues, Advanced Directives, and other pertinent information.
Physician
Our physician is knowledgeable on the latest medications and options for pain and symptom relief. He works with our entire team, the patient and family, as well as the patient's physician to ensure patients are as free of pain and comfortable as they want to be.
Chaplain
Spiritual support is an important part of hospice care. The role of the Hospice of Missoula chaplain is to engage in spiritual care. The hospice chaplain is non-denominational, representing no particular faith tradition, and is able to help provide spiritual guidance and care for patients and their families. Chaplain support provides:
- Support for you through prayer, mediation, and discussion
- Help to coordinate with your faith community (if you have one)
- Focus for you in terms of your strenghts and resources and to support you on your journey
- Exploration, alongside you, the deeper reaches of the meaning of life and death
- Guidance to flow communication between family members and help in teh process of saying goodbye
- Discussion on the experience of grief and loss, and provide bereavement support to your family
- Aid in planning how you would like your memory celebrated
Volunteers
Hospiceof Missoula volunteers provide care and support services for individuals and families. All volunteers are provided with extensive training and support and work closely with the rest of the hospice team to provide consistent care.
Volunteers can provide:
- Companionship for the patient and family
- Staying with the patient while caregivers attend appointments or run errands
- Reading, listening, and reminiscing with the patient
- Assisting in household duties; childcare, light chores, or running small errands
Music Clinician (Music Thanatologist)
Hospice of Missoula''s music clinician delivers live prescriptive music at the bedside wit hvoice and harp that is designed to respond to the individual needs and symptoms of the person who is suffering. The goal is to relieve the physical, emotional, and spiritual pain that may burden the terminally ill patient and their loved ones. Deeply spiritual in intention and impact, this calming method of care is also very practical. It offers patients and their loved ones something meaningful and specific when invasive forms of medical technology are no longer available.
The Music Clincian Provides:
- Relief from physical, emotional, and spiritual pain
- Relief from agitation
- Music to synchronize with the patients breathing patterns
- Relief from stress for the patient, family, and caregivers
Hospice of Missoula provides all of these services for patients and they are free of charge.
