Newport News, Va. – Effective January 1, 2016, Riverside Health System and Hospice & Palliative Care of the Eastern Shore (HPCES) have combined resources in order to deliver the most comprehensive, coordinated network of hospice care to families on the Shore. This alliance joins the assets of HPCES with Riverside's 30+ years of hospice experience enabling both organizations to deliver the highest quality of resources and services.
Riverside employs a team approach to hospice care—with doctors, nurses, social workers, chaplains, and home health aides, all working together with patients and their families to enhance each person's quality of life.
"Medicare defines hospice care as having a prognosis of six months or less," said Dr. James McDaniel, Medical Director for Shore Hospice. "Riverside defines hospice care by asking the question: how do we give you the best life today? Our philosophy is based on honoring patients' choices for care, dignity, and comfort in a place of their choosing."
This arrangement will provide better continuity of care for all hospice patients on the Eastern Shore. In addition, this positioning will expand all of the programs and services Riverside has to offer, such as home health and the compassionate care network, thereby delivering more effective and more complete services for each patient. Patients and families will experience enhanced safety, quality, service and respect.
"The Board, staff and volunteers of Hospice and Palliative Care of the Eastern Shore are proud of the excellent standard of care provided to thousands of patients and family members over many years," shared Sandra Fox, President of the Board of Directors for HPCES. "This included medical services, caregiver and bereavement care and services. We are certain that this high standard of comprehensive care will continue under the leadership of Riverside and we would like to thank the community for their support."
Riverside will continue to run the thrift stores, support groups and Fragile Hearts Camp offered by HPCES.
ABOUT RIVERSIDE HEALTH SYSTEM:
A regional leader in providing healthcare since 1915, Riverside Health System seeks to deliver care and services - as a team- by putting patients and residents at the center. Riverside delivers a variety of health care services and programs in the areas of prevention, acute care, aging-related services, rehabilitation, ambulatory care, diagnostic care, education, and home care.
Riverside is also the largest provider of aging-related services in Virginia. Its Lifelong Health Division handles the development and operation of continuing care retirement communities, assisted living apartments, skilled nursing and rehab centers, residential memory support, wellness centers, and community based services such as the Program for All Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE), home health, home-enabling technology, including telemedicine, as well as the compassionate care program, which includes advance care planning, palliative care, and hospice care.
ABOUT HOSPICE AND PALLIATIVE CARE OF THE EASTERN SHORE (HPCES):
The mission of Hospice of the Eastern Shore is to support individuals and their families who reside in Accomack and Northampton Counties in coping with the dying process;to enhance quality of life through comfort measures rather than curative measures;to sustain one's dignity;to offer bereavement care to family prior to and following the death, and to provide education to the community regarding end-of-life care and issues.