BIG BEND HOSPICE, INC. (www.bigbendhospice.org)
Licensed since 1983, Big Bend Hospice (BBH) provides expert health care, encouragement, hope, compassion and companionship to people with a limited life expectancy so that they can complete personal goals and find spiritual and emotional peace. Located in Tallahassee, Florida, BBH covers 8 counties in the Big Bend region (Franklin, Gadsden, Jefferson, Leon, Liberty, Madison, Taylor and Wakulla).
BBH provides each patient with a care team composed of the patient's own physician, a hospice nurse, home health Aide, family support counselor, chaplain, music therapist and trained volunteers. The Attending Physician must certify the terminal condition of the patient. The patient's physician directs the medical care of the patient.
The Registered Nurse assigned to each patient and their family provides expertise in effective management of the patient’s symptoms, including pain. They also teach family members the skills necessary to provide care and comfort to their loved one at home. Home Health Aides assist the patient with appropriate and safe technique in personal hygiene and grooming including bathing, shaving, and skin care, under the supervision of a Registered Nurse. Counselors offer education and support to the patients as they confront the many issues related to their illness. Counselors assist the caregivers and other family members in coping with the unique types of stress that caregivers face. Chaplains (or volunteer clergy) provide pastoral care and spiritual support for patients and family upon request.
BBH Music Therapists utilize live music to enhance patient care in ways that CDs and recorded music cannot. Music therapy is not entertainment, but the prescribed use of music by trained professionals to attain specific therapeutic goals. BBH Music Therapist are all MT-BC, Board Certified Music Therapist, and have completed coursework in music principles and theory, psychology, counseling and grief and loss. BBH Music Therapist utilize voice, guitar, keyboard, lap harp, tone chimes, Q-chord, dulcimer, and a variety of percussion instruments to create positive and interactive musical experiences with patients and family members. Patients participate by singing, instrumental play, and song writing. Benefits from music therapy include pain management, increased socialization, increased relaxation, facilitation of life review, family involvement, spiritual comfort and opportunities for choice-making.
Big Bend Hospice offers grief support to both survivors of hospice patients and to members in the big bend community who have suffered a loss. They offer a variety of services: individual counseling, grief support groups, children support groups, camps for children and teens, services of remembrance, crisis support and consultation services.
'''The Caring Tree''' was created in 1995 as a community outreach of Big Bend Hospice. The program is designed to meet the unique needs of grieving children and teens. '''The Caring Tree''' creates safe, therapeutic, and age-appropriate environments in which young people and the adults around them can learn to understand and cope with loss. '''The Caring Tree''' combines short and log term services to provide comprehensive opportunities for healing and education.
The Margaret Z. Dozier Hospice House provides hospice care to those patients whose level of medical need changes and families find that they need more medical oversight than they can provide at home. The Hospice House provides a home-like environment for patients who have a need for short-term pain and symptom management, who have an increased need for skilled nursing care, or who have a caregiving crisis. The House, with 12 individually furnished bedrooms, is a place for critical patient care in a non-institutional setting. There are open spaces for families to gather, a children’s playroom, a reflection room for quiet contemplation and a private garden.
Hospice care is available for individuals in the 8 county area of Big Bend who (1) have been diagnosed with a life-limiting illness with a life expectancy of less than a year; (2) have a physician who will be part of the Care Team and participate in the interdisciplinary development, implementation, and updating of care plan; (3) are no longer seeking curative treatment (although pain-relieving measures can include radiation and chemotherapy) and (5) have a primary caregiver in the home or an alternative plan of care when they are no longer able to function independently.
Hospice care is covered 100% through Medicare/Medicaid under special benefits section (including medications, medical equipment and medical supplies) and most commercial insurance and health maintenance organizations (HMO) plans.
