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Services
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 to 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 of Missoula provides medications, supplies, equipment, and additional helpers in the home as needed.
The Hospice Team
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.
Medical Director
Our medical director, Dr. Eric Kress, is an expert in pain and symptom management. He works with our entire team, the patient and family, and the patient's primary physician to ensure comfort, peace, and dignity for all our patients.
Nurses
The hospice nurse makes regularly scheduled visits to the patient, providing expert pain management and symptom control techniques. The nurse keeps the primary physician informed of the patient's condition and communicates with the rest of the hospice team. Nurses provide the complete spectrum of skilled nursing care and are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Social Workers
Hospice social workers provide emotional support, grief counseling, and bereavement follow-up. They also evaluate the need for volunteers and other support services, facilitate communication between the family and community agencies, and assist with advanced directives.
Home Health Aides
Hospice home health aides provide personal hygiene care, bathing, and light housekeeping. Our aides also provide compassionate companionship, as well as some special touches such as fingernail painting and light massage when requested.
Chaplains
Hospice chaplains provide spiritual support to people from all religious and spiritual orientations, at the request of the patient or family. Our chaplains may provide prayer, or help to coordinate spiritual care with a patient's faith community. Hospice chaplains may also help patients explore existential issues and identify inner strengths and resources. After a patient has died, our hospice chaplain is available to provide bereavement support and to assist with memorial planning and services.
Music-Thanatologists
Our highly trained hospice music-thanatologists use their voice and harp to respond to the individual needs and symptoms of our patients. The goal is to relieve the physical, emotional, and spiritual pain that may burden terminally ill patients 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.
Volunteers
Our trained volunteers work closely with the rest of the hospice team to provide quality, compassionate care. Volunteers may 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