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When Pain Intensifies, so Too Can Care: Kansas City Hospice & Palliative Care's $10 Million, 24-Bed Residential Hospice Will Expand Service Options

Posted on: Saturday, 18 March 2006, 06:00 CST

By Julius A. Karash, The Kansas City Star, Mo.

Mar. 18--Kansas City Hospice & Palliative Care will augment its program with the opening of a residential hospice next month.

The $10 million, 40,000-square-foot facility will be at 12000 Wornall Road, near the corner of Wornall and Santa Fe Trail. It will be dedicated on April 5 and will open with 24 beds. The facility will employ about 45 people by this summer.

The 12.2-acre site will enable the hospice to expand to up to 48 beds if needed.

"It's a whole new kind of service that hasn't been available in Kansas City," said Elaine McIntosh, president and chief executive officer of the nonprofit organization. "So many other cities have these kinds of facilities."

The hospice organization will retain its headquarters at 9221 Ward Parkway, and it will continue its current practice of serving patients in their homes, in nursing homes and in hospitals.

But adding a residential facility will enable the hospice organization to provide a higher level of service to those who need it, McIntosh said.

The mission of a hospice is not to prolong people's lives, but to help make their final days as comfortable as possible. Patients are treated for pain, nausea, shortness of breath and other common symptoms of advanced illnesses. The services of a hospice typically are covered by Medicare or private insurance.

The need for and use of such care is growing, said J. Donald Schumacher, president and chief executive officer of the National Hospice & Palliative Care Organization, based in Alexandria, Va. He said that there were 1.65 million U.S. hospice patients in 2004, and that the number had grown by 10 to 15 percent every year between 1996 and 2004.

"It's a combination of more people needing it and greater understanding of what the hospice's mission is," Schumacher said.

The new Kansas City hospice facility will be staffed by physicians, registered nurses, social workers, chaplains and volunteers.

All the rooms of the new facility will be private. Services offered by the center will include massage therapy, hydrotherapy, and art and music therapy. It also will include a small library, a nondenominational chapel and areas for families to gather.

"Many of the patients will be individuals we have cared for at home," McIntosh said. "Sometimes in the course of their illness, or toward the end, their care needs become too intense for their families to manage."

The architect for the project is Helix Architecture and Design of Kansas City.

About $12 million has been raised in a capital campaign for the hospice facility. The capital campaign will continue until November. If the campaign reaches its goal of $14 million it will receive a $650,000 challenge grant from the Kresge Foundation.

Kansas City Hospice & Palliative Care is part of Community Health Group, a nonprofit entity that is temporarily overseeing certain assets of the former Health Midwest system. McIntosh said the hospice expected to spin off on its own by early next year.

More information about the organization is available at www.kansascityhospice.org .

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To reach Julius A. Karash, health-care reporter, call (816) 234-4918 or send e-mail to jkarash@kcstar.com.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Kansas City Star, Mo.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: The Kansas City Star (Kansas City, Missouri)

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