Housecall Providers Receives $328,750 To Expand Its Home-Based Palliative Care Services and Create New Jobs

For Immediate Release: August 11, 2015

Registered Nurses and Social Workers are Encouraged to Apply for the Palliative Care Team

Portland, Ore. — Housecall Providers, a nonprofit primary and hospice medical provider dedicated to serving patients at home, has received two 3-year grants, totaling $328,750, to create a home-based palliative care service for its patients. According to the World Health Organization, palliative care is “an approach that improves the quality of life of patients and their families facing the problem associated with life-threatening illness, through the prevention and relief of suffering by means of early identification and impeccable assessment and treatment of pain and other problems, physical, psychosocial and spiritual.”

The grants include Meyer Memorial Trust and The Collins Foundation, both long-time supporters of Housecall Providers’ innovative programs. The funds will support the creation of an official Housecall Providers palliative care team, who will bridge the gap between primary care, transitional care and hospice services. This palliative care team will help patients who do not yet qualify for hospice and need team support in addition to care from a single primary care provider.

“We are happy to support Housecall Providers, as it is our mission to invest in programs that build thriving communities, beginning with how we care for ourselves and others in the home,” said Doug Stamm, MMT’s chief executive officer. “Our values align nicely: to innovate, take risks, embrace diversity and adapt to changing circumstances.”

“Housecall Providers is proud to expand our palliative care services with the goal of achieving the best quality of life as chosen by a patient and their family,” said Terri Hobbs, executive director, Housecall Providers. “Now we can provide a full continuum of care in the setting where patients wish to be, in their homes.”

Similar to hospice, palliative care employs an interdisciplinary team approach (primary care provider, nurse, social worker and a chaplain) to provide holistic care to improve physical and psychosocial symptoms.

As part of the newly created palliative care team, Housecall Providers is currently seeking a social worker and a registered nurse to join the 20-year-old non-profit. Candidates who want to work collaboratively, provide the highest level of care for our community’s homebound and chronically ill members, while playing a key role in the national discussion surrounding home- based medicine are encouraged to visit the careers page and apply.

The transition team, created to support our participation with the national Independence at Home Demonstration study, was by design, a pilot to rolling out a palliative care program. Throughout the three years it has been in place, the team was able to collect data and show positive quality metrics that support a team approach in caring for our patient population with medically complex needs and multiple chronic conditions. In its first year, IAH saved Medicare more than $25 million in serving over 8,400 Medicare beneficiaries by reducing trips to the emergency department and hospitalizations among other performance measures.

“Our expansion of palliative care services focuses on decreasing symptoms, improving quality of life and creating a patient-centered treatment plan specifically for some of our more complex patients who need extra support,” said Mary Sayre, RN, Housecall Providers primary care program director. “What is exciting about this innovative model is that the primary care provider will continue to lead a team of palliative care experts of nursing, social work and spiritual counselor who will offer this added supportive care that many of our patients need.”

To view this release as a PDF, click here.

About Housecall Providers

Housecall Providers is a Portland, Oregon-based nonprofit primary care medical practice and hospice service devoted exclusively to making home medical visits, or house calls, to patients who have great difficulty leaving their residence. A typical Housecall Providers patient is elderly with complex medical issues and multiple chronic disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Founded in 1995 by Dr. Benneth Husted, Housecall Providers is led by Executive Director, Terri Hobbs and Medical Director, Dr. Pamela Miner. It employs 100 people who care for nearly 2,000 patients annually. To date its clinicians have made more than 135,000 house calls.