There are three agencies that provide accreditation for home care and hospice
escription of setting
Our midwest group has chosen Suncrest Hospice and Home care located in Ames and Des Moines, Iowa. It is a a home based agency which provides care for patients who are terminally ill. The employees consist of nurses, home health aides, social workers, counselors and others. In addition to medical needs, the team focuses on the emotional, physical, social and spiritual needs of the patients, as well as supporting family members (Hospice.io, n.d.).
Accreditation
There are three agencies that provide accreditation for home care and hospice; The Joint Commission (TJC), Community Health Accreditation Program (CHAP), and Accreditation Commission for Healthcare (ACHC) (Devoti, 2018). Suncrest Hospice and Home Care received accrediation approval from Community Health Accredition Partner (CHAP), which is valid through August 26th, 2021 (CHAP, 2018). CHAP was “created in 1965, and …was the first accrediting body for home and community-based healthcare organizations in the United States” (CHAP, 2018). By being CHAP accredited, Suncrest meets the regulatory requirment to be Medicare certified, which means that hospice services are covered by Medicare/Medicaid (Office of the Federal Register, 2018).
Three CHAP standards selected for review
After review of the CHAP hospice standards (2018), I selected the following three to review:
- Written mission statement affirms the concept of hospice and palliative care addressing the physical, social, psychological and spiritual dimensions of care as an integrated whole.
- An interdisciplinary care team/group (IDT/IDG) collaborates with patient’s attending physician, patient/representative and primary caregiver to develop a patient directed individualized plan of care.
- The hospice program has adequate and appropriate staff and services.
According to Suncrests´ Mission, they are committed to “…provide the highest quality of care and customer service to (their) patients, their families and (their) referring sources” (2018). The mission statement does not clearly detail the goal of hospice and palliative care in addressing the multiple aspects of care of a terminally ill patient, therefore not clearly meeting the first standard selected.
On the Suncrest website, hospice is described as treatment provided by “…qualified and compassionate physicians, nurses, aides, social workers, and spiritual advisors” (Suncrest, 2018). This statement does comply with the second standard selected, in that a team is providing and implementing a plan of care for each patient.
Looking at the career webpage of Suncrest Hospice, there are two opening for employment at the Des Moines location. This meets the third standard selected of adequate staff.
References
Community Health Accreditation Partner [CHAP]. (2018). CHAP accredited organization locator. Retrieved from
Community Health Accreditation Partner [CHAP]. (2018). About our history. Retrieved from https://chapinc.org/contact-about-us/
Devoti, A.L., (2018) Accreditation services for home care and hospice. Retrived from
Hospice.io, (n.d.) Suncrest Hospice, Llc west des moines. Retrieved March 12th, 2019 from
Office of the Federal Register. (2018). Continued approval of the community health accreditation partner’s hospice accreditation program. Retrieved from https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2018/11/16/2018-25066/medicare-and-medicaid-programs-continued-approval-of-the-community-health-accreditation-partners
Suncrest. (2018). Our mission. Retrieved from
Suncrest. (2018). What is hospice? Retrieved from
