Caring Foundations, Catawba Regional Hospice Announce Formation of New Organization to Ensure Long-Term Success of Community-Based Hospices

NEWTON, N.C., July 30, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Catawba Regional Hospice and Caring Foundations today announced the first step in the formation of a national not-for-profit organization designed to ensure the sustainability and long-term success of the nation's 1,100+ community-based hospice providers. In becoming a platform member of Caring Foundations, Catawba Regional Hospice will be helping lead and supporting efforts to translate Catawba Regional Hospice's record of innovation and success to mission-driven, community-based hospices nationwide.

"Catawba Regional Hospice over its 34 years has built an impressive set of accomplishments, creating advanced care and end-of-life care programs that go well beyond the basics of the hospice benefit; programs and services that have helped build a strong, vibrant, community-based hospice," said the Rev. Hugh Westbrook, CEO of Caring Foundations.

"Caring Foundations is led by a team of hospice and advanced care leaders who have a proven track record that dates back to the founding of the hospice movement and who are committed to the long-term sustainability and success of the nation's community-based hospices," said Dave Clarke, President and CEO of Catawba Regional Hospice. "Our goal in working with Caring Foundations is to create a large, national, not-for-profit end-of-life and advanced care provider. Together we can build a national hospice provider whose strength and success will reflect the founding principles of the hospice movement."

"The Catawba Regional Hospice Board of Directors was focused not only on the long-term prospects for our local hospice but also in fulfilling a vision of leading the progress of hospice, palliative and end-of-life care," said Shirley Anthony, Chairperson of the Board of Directors of Catawba Regional Hospice. "While we are proud of our success and confident in our future, becoming part of Caring Foundations enables us to have an impact much more extensive than we could ever have envisioned or managed on our own," she added.

"These are challenging times for stand-alone, community-based hospice providers," Clarke noted. "It's worth noting that community-based hospices account for much less than half of hospice care nationwide, with the disparity between investor-owned and not-for-profit hospices continuing to grow each year.

"While we continue to do very well here our 10-county service area," Clarke shared, "hospices all across the country are being squeezed by intense competition, particularly from large investor-owned chains, an increasingly complex regulatory environment, and a combination of greater costs and flat-to-declining reimbursement. The Board and senior management of Catawba Regional Hospice wanted to act now to position our hospice to be able to continue to succeed far into the future."

"As a national, not-for-profit hospice and as an organization capable of responding to the evolving models of care developed to care for those with advanced illness, Caring Foundations provides the broad platform necessary to ensure the success and sustainability of community-based hospices—while maintaining local ownership and governance," Westbrook said. "The Caring Foundations mission is to combine the scale and operating efficiency of a large, national organization with the mission-driven focus, community-engagement and legacy of care of community-based hospices. Caring Foundations has the understanding to navigate a changing delivery and reimbursement system; the expertise to provide best-in-class services in key operational, quality and compliance areas; and the roots in and commitment to the mission of community-based hospice," Westbrook added.

Chartered in 1979 as one of North Carolina's first three hospice providers, Catawba Regional Hospice has been led by President and CEO Dave Clarke since 1997. From an average daily census then of approximately 40 patients, Catawba Regional Hospice has since grown to care for more than 300 patients each day.

Along the way it has opened the Catawba Valley Hospice House on its Newton campus as well as a second hospice house in Sherrills Ford. Catawba Regional Hospice was the first hospice in North Carolina to offer specialized programs of care for heart failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Working with other local health care partners, Catawba Regional Hospice runs a successful PACE program (Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly) and it established Life Transitions, an extensive palliative medicine practice. CareLink, the organization's most recent initiative, is a care transitions program staffed by nurse navigators who support patients with complex care needs following discharge from the hospital. Catawba Regional Hospice's community resource programs include the Center for Grief and Healing, the Center for Leadership & Learning, a nationally certified "We Honor Veterans" program and "Don't Travel without a Map," an advance care planning program.

"Catawba Regional Hospice demonstrates what a strong, innovative community-based hospice with visionary local leadership and a strong commitment to mission-fulfillment can achieve," said Tom Koutsoumpas, President of Caring Foundations. "What we've begun together is important not just for hospice but also for end-of-life care and advanced illness care for generations to come," he added.

SOURCE Caring Foundations