Mission and Values
Ohio’s Hospice is guided by the values of servant leadership, kindness, honesty and compassion. Our mission is to celebrate the lives of those we have the privilege of serving by providing superior care and superior services to each patient and family. We are supportive, respectful and encouraging. Our team members are encouraged to learn, grow and move the organization forward.
Our associate and affiliate members’ mission of providing superior end-of-life care in our communities is as important today as when most of us started our missions 40 years ago. But in the turbulent, ever-changing healthcare world, meeting the mission is harder than ever. Together we can better leverage common resources so that we can concentrate on our mission.
Coming together helps us achieve economies of scale and skill, helping our staff members to take care of their respective communities in the face of a very challenging and evolving healthcare environment. As the healthcare market transitions from volume to value, we can leverage resources, lower costs, and help others retain their relevance and vitality. The mission of community-based not-for-profit hospices is not only worth saving but also worth enhancing.
Ohio’s Hospice goes well beyond the basic minimums set by the state of Ohio and Medicare by requiring all of its nursing staff to also be certified by the leading national organization for end-of-life care nursing, the Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association (HPNA). Within two years of joining Ohio’s Hospice, every nurse and nursing assistant must achieve HPNA certification. Ohio’s Hospice makes a considerable investment each year in supporting its nurses in their pursuit of certification.
For years, Ohio’s Hospice has offered tuition reimbursement to support all staff in developing a fulfilling career ladder. In 2020, Ohio’s Hospice offered a scholarship program to recruit and train STNAs. The organization has partnered with area colleges to offer a tuition-free, four-week educational program for prospective nursing assistants. Ohio’s Hospice continues to look for ways to invest in its own staff as a way of investing in the communities it is privileged to serve.
Because of the CARES Act (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act) funding, Ohio’s Hospice received $7.2 million from the U.S. government. The challenge — and opportunity — governed by a community-based board of directors drawn from each of the communities it serves was how to be a responsible steward of the funds entrusted to it and how to be transparent about how it administered those funds in the midst of a national healthcare emergency.
Where did the money go? Much of it went to front line staff. Every front-line worker, from nurses and nurses’ aides at the bedside to housekeeping and culinary workers in the inpatient care centers. We did that to protect our patients, their families, and our staff. The money did what it was supposed to do. It provided stability and security to an essential provider.
When the leadership team from Ohio’s Hospice began daily COVID-19 Task Force video meetings in March 2020, it set the tone for a response to the healthcare crisis. Because of the efforts of that leadership team, the staff throughout the organization relied on evidence-based science and effective communication.
Ohio’s Hospice created an intranet site to host essential information about the response to COVID-19. Information also was shared with community care partners, patients and families, and the community. Throughout the organization, affiliate and associate members shared information and resources. We also learned from one another.
As the COVID-19 pandemic evolved, Ohio’s Hospice opened its doors and hearts to COVID-positive patients. To ensure the safety of patients, staff and visitors, Ohio’s Hospice created policies that followed the known science and reflected the special circumstances of caring for patients facing a life-limiting illness. The not-for-profit organization created isolation units for COVID-positive patients within its inpatient care centers.
To provide the care to COVID-positive patients, Ohio’s Hospice asked for nurses and nursing assistants to volunteer to care for those patients. Although visitation was not shut down entirely, visitation policies were tightly restricted in the early months of the pandemic and then gradually loosened as more was learned about how the virus is transmitted and as PPE became more readily available. To facilitate video calls with other family members and friends, every patient had access to iPads supplied by Ohio’s Hospice.
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the bereavement counseling professionals at each Ohio’s Hospice affiliate reshaped how they provided care to grieving families and community members. Because of the pandemic, counselors reached out to the bereaved by phone. They offered online group grief support sessions. They also offered video calls. Their response met a need in communities throughout the state of Ohio.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, our volunteers supported our mission by stepping up and delivering the most precious of timely gifts: homemade face masks, gowns and visors to keep patients, their loved ones, and our staff safe and well protected from the virus. Volunteers who normally were devoted to visiting patients in person at the bedside began to check in with patients regularly by phone or video calls.
Many wrote cards and letters not just for hospice patients but also for residents of nursing homes and assisted living facilities. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, our Veteran Volunteers conducted Veteran recognition ceremonies by telephone or video call while an Ohio’s Hospice staff member in full PPE was at the patient’s bedside to present the pin, certificate and other mementos.
While Ohio’s Hospice and its staff have been on the front lines of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we also recognize that hospitals, physician offices, and nursing home and assisted living communities with which we partner have been working and sacrificing on the front lines as well. Our Business Development Team worked with our partners throughout the pandemic to provide them with information, lunch and kindness baskets.
The team also organized virtual networking events for local healthcare professionals, bringing in Ohio’s Hospice counselors and other experts to offer tips and counseling on topics like self-care, grief and loss, and care planning. Ohio’s Hospice is committed to being an indispensable member of the community, understanding community need, and having the resources and the in-house expertise to respond to those needs.
No matter how you crunch the numbers, Ohio’s Hospice is one of Ohio’s and one of the nation’s largest and most significant not-for-profit providers of hospice, palliative and serious illness care. Thanks to an active engaged board of directors focused on its fiduciary responsibilities, Ohio’s Hospice possesses a sound balance sheet.
That size, strength, breadth of capabilities and fiscal soundness enabled Ohio’s Hospice to respond quickly, effectively, compassionately and responsibly to the COVID-19 pandemic. And it will continue to be the foundation of Ohio’s Hospice as it works to define and meet community need across the communities it is privileged to serve.
Mission and Values
Ohio’s Hospice is guided by the values of servant leadership, kindness, honesty and compassion. Our mission is to celebrate the lives of those we have the privilege of serving by providing superior care and superior services to each patient and family. We are supportive, respectful and encouraging. Our team members are encouraged to learn, grow and move the organization forward.
