WebMD: Care and Comfort for the Patient and Caregiver with Dr. Whyte, Tom Koutsoumpas, and Sharon Casey

Have you discussed your later-life care preferences with your family? Have you thought about how much care you’d like to receive at the end-of-life? What type of care you’d want? And where you’d want that delivered … at home or in a hospital? Have you even thought about hospice as an option during your final months and days of living? If you’re like most people, then chances are you have not.

NPHI’s Tom Koutsoumpas, and Sharon Casey, chair of the board of the Washington Home Foundation recently joined Dr. John Whyte, Chief Medical Officer at WebMD to highlight the benefits of hospice for families and dispel common hospice misconceptions.

“Another issue that we have is getting patients too late. There’s a misperception that hospice is at the very end of life. It’s just 2 days or 5 days or 7 days. But that’s not the case… The best approach to get the best out of hospice care for the family as well as the patient is to get in earlier in the process… [the patients] are at home with their loved ones really getting the kind of support that provides the best kind of care at the end of life.”

– Tom Koutsoumpas, NPHI CEO.

Watch the full podcast episode now:

Please click here if you would like read the full podcast video transcript.

The National Partnership for Healthcare and Hospice Innovation (NPHI) is a membership organization comprising nonprofit community-integrated hospice and palliative care providers. These members are dedicated to ensuring patients and their families have access to care that reflects their individual goals, values, and preferences. Representing providers from across the nation, NPHI and its members help design more innovative and effective models of care, advocate for comprehensive and community-integrated care customized to meet each person’s unique needs, and build collaboration between national thought leaders, decision-makers, and other healthcare stakeholders to improve hospice care. Learn more about NPHI at nphihealth.org 

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