Hospice of the Valleys Celebrates its Volunteers during National Volunteer Week, April 15 - 21.

(Murrieta) - Hospice of the Valleys is honoring the 70 dedicated volunteers from our community who ensure that patients and families facing serious and life-limiting illness find care, compassion, and support.

"Hospice of the Valleys was founded by volunteers 35 years ago and our volunteers continue to play an indispensable role in providing the very best care possible for our patients, their families and caregivers. By sharing their time, passion, and expertise, our volunteers bring compassion and caring to the lives of those in need," said Executive Medical Director Dr. Leslee Cochrane.

The National Hospice of Palliative Care Organization reports that there are an estimated 430,000 trained hospice volunteers providing more than 19 million hours of service to hospice programs each year. An estimated 1.6 million patients in the U.S. are cared for by hospice every year.

It is federally mandated under Medicare that five percent of all patient care hours be provided by trained volunteers reflecting the vital role that volunteers play in the provision of care.

Hospice volunteers often serve patients and families at the bedside but they also assist in the office, help raise awareness, contribute to educational programs, and provide fundraising support and more. Most hospice volunteers choose to give their time helping others because of their own experience with the compassionate care hospice provided to a dying loved one.

"I volunteer for Hospice of the Valleys because I experienced firsthand the wonderful and compassionate care the staff and volunteers provided while I cared for my mother and I wanted to be part of this organization to give back and help carry on the great work Hospice of the Valleys provides for so many in the community." - Norma

Hospice is about family and community... And volunteers are the heart of hospice. There's a place for you on the hospice team. If you are interested in becoming a volunteer, please contact Chrisy Lawless at 951-200-7800.

Did you know that more than 65 million Americans serve as unpaid caregivers for a chronically ill or disabled family member or friend during any given year? These caregivers spend an average of 20 hours per week providing care for their loved one and the estimated market value of the care they provide is a whopping $375 billion dollars per year. Because of the high cost of hiring caregivers, 78% of elderly patients in need of long term care are dependent on family and friends as their only source of care giving. Although care giving is a labor of love, the "cost" of providing this amount of care can have devastating long term consequences for care givers physically, emotionally and economically.

In a presentation to the National Academy of Sciences, Elissa Epel from the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California reported that family caregivers experiencing extreme stress have been shown to age prematurely and that this level of stress can take as much as 10 years off a family caregiver's life. In a 2006 published article on the Assessment of Family Caregivers, noted researcher Steven H. Zarit, PhD. found that 40-70% of family caregivers have clinically significant symptoms of depression and 25-50% of these caregivers meet the diagnostic criteria for major depression. According to the National Alliance for Caregiving and Evercare, 47% of working caregivers indicated an increase in caregiving expenses has caused them to use up or most of their savings.

Given these statistics it is not surprising to hear that caregiver burnout is a big concern. Caregivers suffering from burnout typically feel physically, emotionally and spiritually exhausted and to make matters worse they may be reluctant to ask for help and may also feel guilty that they are not able to meet all of the needs of their loved on. In this article we have examined some of the causes of caregiver burnout. Next month I will discuss how to recognize the signs of caregiver burnout and what to do about it.

There is a common misconception about hospice. Many people believe that when hospice is needed all hospices are the same: part of some perfect, interchangeable, whole. Actually, the word hospice can mean both the concept and movement in the provision of compassionate end of life care, as well as the name of an agency which provides such care. In fact, there are many individual hospice agencies, and all have nuanced differences. Some are large and some are small. Some are for-profit and others are non-profit. Some are based within your local community, and some outside that community. Some provide a higher quality of care than others. Your primary care physician may recommend one particular hospice agency while you have heard good recommendations about another.

The important thing to know is that you have a choice. Per Medicare guidelines, each patient and family considering hospice care has the right to choose which hospice agency they would like to care for their loved one. this is an important and critical decision: who better to guide you than the voices of actual families of hospice patients who have rated their own experience of the care they received from a particular hospice?

A new tool is available to help you do just that: Medicare Hospice Compare. (www.medicare.gove/hospicecompare) The cneters for Medicare and Medicaid Services/CMS collects data about the quality of the care provided by each hospice agency, submitted by hospice families who rate their satisfcation with various hospcie services. The families rate such important care giving categories as: help for pain and pain management; communication with family; getting timely help; treating the patient with respect; emotional and spiritual support; training the family to care for the patient. The fmailies are also asked whether or not they would recommend the individual hospice agency.

This is so important that Medicare has created an online tool by which families are now able to determine the quality of care an individual hospice agency provides. Hospice Compare now allows YOU to see a snapshot of the most important indicators of quality of care in comparison, and to see that all hospices are not alike.

You now have access to all this data on all the local hospice agencies in your area. Simply access the website (www.medicare.gov/hospicecompare) and type in either the name of the hospice or your zip code. A list of all the hospice agencies at a time. This is a marvelous tool to guide you in making an informed hospice care choice. The higher the rating, the better the care is rated. All ratings can be compared with national averages for each category. Current data on the site represents satisfaction surveys for about a two year period from 2015 to 2017.

We at Hospice of the Valleys are proud to say that we rate among the very top of all local hospices serving our area, and that our ratings are well above national averages for excellence in hospice care in all categories. Take a few moments on line and check us out! Then tell your friends: there is a real difference in hospice care... and that difference is Hospice of the Valleys.

Family experience of care

Family caregivers' survey results

Compare hospices based on results from a national survey that asks a family member or friend of a hospice patient about their hospice care experience.
- The data were collected between 04/01/2015 and 03/31/2017
- Higher percentages are better

	Hospice of the Valleys	National Average
Communication with family	87%	80%
Getting timely help	83%	78%
Treating patient with respect	94%	91%
Emotional and spiritual support	93%	89%
Help for pain and symptoms	82%	75%
Training family to care for patient	82%	75%
Rating of this hospice	87%	80%
Willing to recommend this hospice	92%	84%