In Hospice, Time is an Illusion

by Lizzy Miles (@LizzyMiles_MSW)Lately I ’ve been thinking a lot about the perception of time and how it affects our patients. Because their time is limited, their perception of time and its value can often be magnified. This is our job, but this is the patient’s LIFE. We have to remember that for our patients, they may be hyper-focuse d on time. How do we help them feel good about timing and the time we spend with them? We can do this by being mindful of how we use our time with them and also how we show respect for their time.Set expectationsThere is research in the ambulatory care arena that says that patient satisfaction is increased if a patient knows how long they are going to have to wait to see the practitioner. It would be reasonable to conclude that this would apply to hospice visits as well.Intervention: Always give a time range for when you ’re going to visit so you bake time in for traffic, other longer visits, etc.So much caregiver distress could be alleviated if we just set expectations appropriately.Interventions:• On admission, make sure you tell patients and families the visit frequency for each discipline.• Inform family members how your organization’s paging system works. Encourage them to let us know when they call how important their call is. Encourage them to call back if they haven’t heard back from the staff member and they feel it’s urgent.• If you’re taking a message for another staff member, don’t make promises for others. If ...
Source: Pallimed: A Hospice and Palliative Medicine Blog - Category: Palliative Care Tags: hospice perception social worker time Source Type: blogs