Many families hope their parent can spend their final months in a familiar place, surrounded by people who know them, rather than in a hospital or nursing facility. An adult family home makes that possible. At Silvergate, residents who enroll in hospice stay in their own room, with their own caregivers, and the hospice team comes to them.
How hospice works in an adult family home
Hospice is a Medicare benefit for people whose physician expects that they have six months or less to live and who choose comfort over curative treatment. A hospice agency provides a nurse, a social worker, a chaplain if wanted, medical equipment, and medications related to the terminal diagnosis. The agency does not provide round-the-clock care. That is what we do.
We coordinate with the hospice nurse on the plan of care, carry out that plan hour by hour, and call the agency when symptoms change. Our RN owner reviews orders and makes sure comfort medications are given as prescribed.
What daily comfort care includes
- Repositioning every two hours to prevent pressure injuries, and skin care at each shower or bed bath
- Mouth care, gentle bathing, and clean linens
- Help with eating and drinking for as long as a resident wants them, with texture changes as swallowing becomes harder
- Pain and symptom medications given on time and documented
- A quiet room, familiar music, and staff who sit with a resident when family cannot be there
Supporting families
Families are welcome at any hour when a resident is near the end of life. We will make space for you to stay, keep you informed of changes, and be honest about what we are seeing. After a death, we help with the practical steps and give family the time they need to gather belongings.
Residents who are not on hospice
Not every resident with a serious illness chooses hospice. We also work with home health agencies and palliative care providers, and we can care for residents with advanced dementia, heart failure, COPD, and other progressive conditions. If a resident's needs exceed what we can safely provide, we say so early and help the family find the right setting.
Talk with us before a crisis
The best time to discuss end-of-life wishes is before they are urgent. When you tour either of our homes in Bonney Lake or Buckley, ask us about advance directives, POLST forms, and how we handle hospice. We would rather have that conversation early.