The Denver Hospice in Colorado is renovating its Inpatient Care Center at Lowry. The upgrades include a new medication delivery system and additional beds within a recently-added negative pressure wing designed to treat patients with infectious disease.
Founded in 1978, The Denver Hospice provides care to more than 4,000 hospice patients and 1,200 palliative care patients and their families annually across nine Colorado counties. In addition to the inpatient center, the organization provides care in the home, in skilled nursing facilities and in senior living communities.
The Inpatient Care Center has 24 beds, six of which are located in the negative-pressure wing. New beds include features that improve patient comfort such as safety lights for clinicians to check on patients from afar with minimal interruptions. The beds are also equipped with mechanisms to help patients sit up or change positions and built-in scales to weigh patients without moving them to help determine accurate medication dosing.
“The beds provide an extra layer of safety for our patients and also help our staff avoid injuries and be more efficient,” said Stacey Stafford, clinical manager at the center.
Each patient room includes double doors, allowing beds to roll out onto adjacent private outdoor patios and gardens. The center’s updates also include an electronic medication delivery system called Human Scale carts. Similar to a hospital’s model of delivery, the carts operate as an electronic workstation for hospice clinicians. Through the system, hospice staff can record their hours using a time card function, track medications dispensed for each patient, conduct internet research, and document patient care and notes in real time.
“The new patient beds and an upgraded medication delivery system provide a standard of patient care and safety rarely found in an inpatient hospice setting,” said Melinda Egging, president of The Denver Hospice. “The improvements are part of our commitment to securing the very best for our patients, to make their time with us the best it can be.”
Open to families and visitors 24-7, the facility features a family dining room, meeting rooms, a multi-faith chapel, library and a spa with a hydro-therapy tub, TV, music therapy and an area for haircuts and grooming.
The Denver Hospice is the founding affiliate member of Care Synergy, a recently established collaborative among five hospice and palliative care providers serving Colorado’s Front Range, which wraps from Castle Rock in the south to Longmont in the north. Colorado ranked 13th in the nation in hospice utilization during 2018 with 53.2% of Medicare decedents electing hospice, according to the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization.
The investment of new beds and medication carts is part of a long-term plan that will include continuous upgrades to the center, according to Evan Hyatt, director of marketing and communications for Care Synergy.
“The advances that were recently put in place are part of The Denver Hospice’s ongoing commitment to continuous improvement at the Inpatient Care Center,” Hyatt told Hospice News. “We continue to update and upgrade beds and equipment as part of an overall improvement plan to ensure we are providing the best patient care possible and most up-to-date medical delivery devices as possible.”
The hospice is financing the renovations with philanthropic dollars from the Patten-Davis Foundation, according to Hyatt.
The Denver Hospice expanded earlier this year with a new pediatric support facility, called the Amy Davis Hospice Support Center, for bereavement care and public education as well as some areas for administrative purposes. The center is part of the company’s Footprints Children’s Services, which has provided hospice, palliative, concurrent, respite and bereavement care to pediatric patients and their families in the Denver area for nearly 30 years.
Growth of services like these are continuing to grow in the Denver metropolitan area at a predicted rate of 7% annually, Egging told Hospice News.
Companies featured in this article:
Care Synergy, National Hospice & Palliative Care Organization, Patten-Davis Foundation, The Denver Hospice
