Hospice is a service that provides care for people in their last six months of life who wish to focus on living their best life with the time they have remaining. We focus on improving our patients’ quality of life and well-being. We have experience treating varying medical conditions including dementia, heart disease, lung disease, kidney disease or failure, liver failure, cancer and stroke.

At Providence Hospice Alaska, we focus on getting to know our patients and their families in order to create a medical plan that puts our patients’ needs and goals at the forefront of their care. We offer a holistic approach to make our patients comfortable – physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. It is our goal not only to provide support for our patients but also for their loved ones. Our care focuses on easing discomfort to allow our patients to focus on what is important to them: enjoying time with loved ones, enjoying a beloved hobby, or just appreciating the beauty of this great land.

Hospice services

• As a Medicare Certified Hospice, we provide four levels of care, including:
  • Routine care in the home
  • General inpatient short-term acute care under hospice at Providence Alaska Medical Center
  • Continuous short-term, intensive in-home care
  • Respite short-term care in a designated facility
• Case management services provided by a registered nurse
• Durable medical equipment (DME)
• Medication for symptom and pain management
• Nursing aide visits to assist with personal care
• 24-hour physician oversight
• Regular home nursing visits and 24-hour access to a registered nurse for urgent questions, care and support
• Guidance, resource finding and support from a medical social worker
• Spiritual and emotional counseling by board-certified chaplains
• Respite for caregivers and families
• Support from a team of volunteers
• One year of bereavement support for family members, consisting of mailings, memorial services and grief support

Hospice care team

If you choose, your personal physician may be a part of your hospice team. Other hospice team members include:

• Physicians
• Registered nurses
• Medical social workers
• Aides
• Clinical pharmacist
• Volunteers and bereavement support
• Chaplain

Providence Hospice Alaska Kids Care is a program that provides compassionate care for infants, children and adolescents who are experiencing a life-limiting or life-threatening illness, as well as offer support for their families. Our team offers palliative and hospice care. This includes curative care, as well as comfort care if hospice care is needed (also known as concurrent care).

Our team works with your child’s health care team to help guide and support you, whether the need is pain and symptoms management or making informed medical choices.

With the Affordable Care Act (ACA), a seriously ill child who is under hospice care can now also be covered for concurrent care. Concurrent care means your child is eligible for the compassionate care and support of hospice while still being able to receive treatments meant to cure.

As specialists in providing care for seriously ill children, we know there are many difficult decisions you must face during your child’s illness. We offer ourselves as partners in care by supporting you, the parent, as you make the best possible decisions for your child. We provide care, under your direction and the direction of your child’s medical team, to comfort, support and heal.

We work with the child and family’s other health care providers to determine which services best fit their unique needs. Services we offer include:

• Coordination of comfort care treatments with treatments meant to cure disease
• Interdisciplinary home visits
• Access to a 24 hour on-call hospice registered nurse
• Help obtaining support services and community resources
• Help with practical in-home care needs, like bathing and feeding
• Expert pain control and symptom management
• Help in understanding and making health care decisions
• Emotional and spiritual support for your child and family, including siblings
• Work with your child’s school regarding academic support and attendance
• Consultation with a palliative care doctor (a doctor who helps manage symptoms of disease), including integrating their care with treatments meant to cure disease
• Hospice care that integrates this care with treatments meant to cure disease, if needed
• Emotional and grief support

There are many steps you can take at home to care for your loved ones. We created these videos to explain, and show you ways to provide comfort to loved ones with a life-limiting illness.

Providence Hospice Alaska offers bereavement services at no cost for up to 12 months to individuals and their families following the death of a loved one on hospice.

Bereavement is the experience of losing someone important to us, and grief is typically what we feel after losing a loved one. Common feelings of grief are sadness, anger, bewilderment and disorientation. Many describe grief as fogginess, despair or a deep sadness as they try to live in a world without their loved one.

Grievers sometimes want to be left alone; this is a natural reaction. Most people who have experienced loss will say that being around others and talking about the experience is helpful – when they are ready. Our caregivers knowshow to be a listening ear and to provide the support needed to integrate the loss and make meaning from the experience.

We’re only a phone call away. To speak with our bereavement staff, please call 907-212-4418.

Sometimes a friendly and understanding voice on the phone is all you need. We’re happy to talk, either by appointment or whenever you decide to call.

This is not therapy. Grief is not a disease that requires a diagnosis. Often, a good quality listening ear is all that is needed. No treatment. No bill. Rather, it’s an opportunity to speak with someone trained specifically to listen and support you as you grieve the loss of your loved one.

All ages are welcome. Together with a trained provider, as a family (as you define family) discussing the impact of the death and can be very healing to do together as family.

These ten-week long, seminar-style groups are guided through reading. Grievers meet with facilitators weekly to discuss the materials and to learn from each other. Many have found friendships with fellow grievers a significant source of support. They are scheduled throughout the year, typically taking the summers off.

We Honor Veterans is a pioneering program of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization. In collaboration with the Department of Veterans Affairs, this program empowers hospices and community organizations to meet the unique needs of America’s veterans and their families. The program offers guidance and resources focused on respectful inquiry, compassionate listening and grateful acknowledgment so that veterans can be guided through peaceful end of life care and death.

Providence Hospice Alaska has achieved Two-Star recognition through We Honor Veterans. Our program includes recognition pinning ceremonies and specially-trained staff and volunteers who are prepared to meet the unique challenges veterans and their families face at the end of their life.

As integral members of our hospice team, volunteers play a crucial role in helping patients and families cope with practical, emotional and spiritual challenges at the end of life. Volunteers gain satisfaction from knowing that they make a very real difference in the lives of those they serve. Watch this video to learn more.

If you would like to apply to be a Providence Hospice Alaska volunteer, start by completing the online application for Volunteer Services at Providence Alaska Medical Center. Under Volunteer Questions, please mention that you would like to help with Hospice and your application will be forwarded to us.

If accepted as a hospice volunteer, you will complete three hours of training through the medical center and 15 hours of specific hospice training. The training will be a combination of virtual and in-person training.

To learn more, call 907-231-5697 or send us an email.