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| Pictured at the State of the Heart Hospice Care Center, are, left to right, Heather Wogomon, Sonia Elliott and Hospice Aide Jamie Welch. Seated is Hospice Nurse Mary Rodeheffer. |
Hospice care centers around the team concept, explained Heather Wogomon, Director, Care Center and Palliative Care Services. A physician, nurses, hospice aides, bereavement specialists, social workers, chaplains, music therapists and volunteers work as a team to address the needs of both family and patient. Wogomon added that there is a “new” team member in the care center.
Sonia Elliott, Wayne HealthCare Environmental Services Group Leader has been with the hospital for the past nine years. As the housekeeper for the care center, she provides support by keeping it clean, staying attuned to family and patient needs, and supporting the staff in many ways. “I look at her as part of the team,” Wogomon said. “She is just as vested in our patients and families as the rest of our team at the center. Also, she serves as a vital link with the hospital by helping to maintain good communication among the hospice staff and the hospital administration.”
Lisa Garland, Director of Environmental Services at Wayne HealthCare, said that Elliott “is the perfect fit” to work in the care center. “She is caring and compassionate, very detail oriented and good at what she does. She also has an immense knowledge of the hospital which helps her in her job. She immediately came to mind when we knew we needed a housekeeper for the care center.”
Elliott, of Greenville, was the housekeeper assigned to the Intensive Care Unit years ago before that space became the State of the Heart Hospice Care Center. It was vacant before State of the Heart opened the care center which has five patient beds in private rooms, a lounge for families and a family bath with shower. Elliott said she was “apprehensive” at first about taking on the assignment of cleaning the Care Center.
Realizing that those patients being served are confronting a life-limiting illness, she was concerned that she would form attachments and would find it difficult when a patient passed away. “I will admit that this had me worried,” she said. As she continued to work in the care center, she became more at ease with her duties and interacting with patients and families.
“When I am in the Care Center, I don’t even feel as if I am in a hospital as it is almost like a home away from home,” she said. “There are no machines or monitors beeping and dinging. And, the staff is so compassionate and caring, and they have truly taken me under their wing.” When State of the Heart designed the Care Center, there was an emphasis on making it as homelike and inviting as possible with comfortable furniture. There is a refrigerator in the lounge area, and a microwave, and, coffee is available. Elliott has even added touches of artwork on the walls outside the care center.
Elliott sees up close how families appreciate the center. “The lounge gets a lot of use and consequently needs cleaned more often. The furniture though, is durable and easy to care for.” She also makes sure that clean linens are at hand and there are fresh towels. Patient families often stay overnight, sleeping on the couches provided, and sometimes take showers in the family bathroom. “The staff here caters to all of the needs of both the patient and the family,” she said. “My experience working with Hospice has been a real eye opener about the services provided.”
While she does not want to intrude upon families, she explained, she is a willing listener. Recently, she casually asked a family member in the lounge how they were doing. “It must have been the timing, as the man talked to me about his loved one in the care center, his family and his life. I sensed he just needed someone to listen to him, and I was there for him.”
Wogomon said that the feedback from the families using the care center has been gratifying. “They all say they are grateful that we have the care center,” she said, adding, “and that it is a great service to the community.”
A daughter of one patient recently cared for in the center said that having her mother in the care center helped relieve the stress the family was under. “The staff was wonderful as they explained the hospice program and the help they were able to give. They not only took care of my mother, but they looked after the rest of us while our mother was cared for. The environment was so calming and peaceful, almost like being home. The staff knew how to provide the very best care for my mother, making her as comfortable as possible.”
Wogomon said that families find comfort realizing that their loved one is in a hospice care center and they can be close by in the family lounge. “Recently, we had a patient who had 11 siblings, six children and many grandchildren,” Wogomon said. “The family lounge was truly used and appreciated by this family.”
The care center was established for patient situations where there was a need for close monitoring of pain, and the management of pain that is available only in the inpatient setting. The care center also meets the needs of adjusting medication, observing the patient and stabilizing their condition. In some instances, the patient is newly admitted to State of the Heart for hospice care and needs a brief stay at the center before going home or to a nursing home or assisted living facility.
State of the Heart has offices in Greenville, Coldwater and Portland. For 32 years, the agency has cared for patients and families in eastern Indiana and western Ohio who are confronting a life limiting illness. Patients from the entire service area can use the care center. For more information about the care center or any of the services provided by State of the Heart, visit the web site at www.stateoftheheartcare.org.