Geographic areas served: Santa Clara County
Programs: Hospice Care:
Hospice of the Valley provides a comprehensive, interdisciplinary team approach that allows patients with life-limiting illnesses to spend their final days in a supportive, loving environment, whether that is at home or in a skilled nursing facility. As cure is no longer an option, hospice care focuses on keeping patients as comfortable as possible through pain and symptom management. The HOV interdisciplinary Patient Care Team (consisting of the patient's physician and a medical director or a hospice physician, a nurse, a social worker, a home health aide, a non-denominational spiritual counselor, a dietician, and trained patient care volunteers) creates and carries out an individualized, family-centered plan of care for each patient. Team members are available for advice or home visits, if necessary, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. HOV served 751 hospice patients and their families in the 06-07 fiscal year.
Transitions Client Care:
Transitions is a volunteer-based, non-medical case management program that serves clients who have approximately one year to live and/or are receiving curative treatment, which exempts them from hospice care. The Transitions clients served through HOV are seniors and their families, children who are ill and their parents, patients who have been discharged from hospice for a period of time, and any other individuals who have been diagnosed with life-limiting illnesses, have approximately one year to live, and need coordinated support services. HOV served 114 Transitions clients and their families in the 06-07 fiscal year.
Grief Support:
As part of the hospice program, Hospice of the Valley offers free grief support to hospice family members of all ages (including children) for 13 months following the death of the patient. These services are also offered to the community on a sliding-scale basis; fees are frequently waived in cases of financial hardship and no client or family is ever turned away due to a lack of resources. In addition, an annual, free, one-day Children?s Bereavement Camp and many other grief-related workshops and seminars are offered throughout the year. Grief support services include individual and group counseling, volunteer support, art therapy, and memorial events. Hospice family members and community members who have suffered the loss of a loved one are eligible for the services of HOV's Grief Support Program. HOV?s Grief Support program serves individuals of all ages, races, ethnicities, economic backgrounds, and educational levels. The only thing that all of HOV?s grief support clients have in common is that they have lost a loved one: any grieving individual in Santa Clara County is eligible for the services provided by the agency?s grief support counselors, interns, and volunteers. HOV served 1,338 grief support families in the 06-07 fiscal year.
Community Education, Outreach, and Consultation:
Hospice of the Valley?s community education, outreach, and consultation efforts include functioning as a supervised placement site for counseling and therapist interns, medical students, and nursing students; providing symposia on issues of death, dying, hospice care, and grief to the medical community and the community at large; presenting information on all of our services to a large number of organizations in the Santa Clara Valley; collaborating with other agencies in a number of community events; and providing palliative physician consultations for patients in local hospitals to ensure that patients and their families understand all of their options, including hospice, and feel confident making decisions about their medical care.
