The United States of America is experiencing high growth in the elderly population. With the increase in the aging group and the high incidence of chronic diseases, health facilities need to invest in technology to reach as many patients as possible (Fausto et al., 2020). Therefore, healthcare facilities must create mobile applications and e-books that showcase the palliative care guidelines. Moreover, this will broaden the facility’s audience and develop a network of supporters and experts.
Hospitals should raise awareness and understanding of hospices to attract many customers. Hospice care is a new aspect of improving the quality of life that a few people have only embraced. As a result, owing to the increased number of aging people and the high number of chronic diseases expected to be experienced in the country, awareness creation will help in changing the attitude of the potential clients, hence, increasing the number of patients (Matthews et al., 2017). Additionally, there are several myths surrounding death, and the public can still be reluctant to disclose the terminal diseases their families are experiencing. Therefore, creating awareness will make people accept that death is the final destination of life and, therefore, they should spend quality time with their dying relatives.
Hospice services should be integrated into education and training. Although World Health Organization (WHO) recommended that higher learning institutions should integrate hospice services into their curricula, many institutions are still reluctant to adopt the system. Palliative care teaching should be administered in both nursing and medical schools to ensure that they are conversant with the quality care. This is because the doctors and nurses will be handling patients who have already accepted that death is the final destination of every human and having a comfortable remainder of life is all that matters because it helps them have self-satisfaction (Morrison, 2018). Therefore, the education system and training in medical and nursing schools should integrate hospice curricula.
References
Fausto, J., Hirano, L., Lam, D., Mehta, A., Mills, B., Owens, D., Perry, E., & Curtis, J. R. (2020). Creating a palliative care inpatient response plan for COVID-19-the UW medicine experience. Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, 60(1), 21-26. Web.
Matthews, M., Peters, C., & Lawson, S. (2017). An exploratory investigation of hospice marketing: How are palliative care providers marketing their services? Health Marketing Quarterly, 34(1), 48-61.
Morrison, R. S. (2018). A national palliative care strategy for Canada. Journal of Palliative Medicine, 21(1), 63-75.