Episode 20: The Hospice Low-down

Hospice is a medically directed, interdisciplinary team-based program of services that focuses on patients nearing the end of life and their family. Hospice is the gold standard method of caring for people at the stage of a life-limiting illness when no further curative or life-prolonging therapy is available or wished to be pursued by a patient or family member. Hospice is not necessarily a place. Hospice is a philosophy of treatment and care designed to improve the comfort of patients and families facing the last chapter of life. It is designed to help patients when further attempts at cure are no longer desired, either because treatment options have been exhausted, or the burdens of continued treatment outweigh any benefit to the patient. The goal of hospice is improved quality of life at the end of life, helping the dying patient live as well as they can until death comes.