Introduction
VITAS Healthcare is a hospice care agency that began in 1798 in Florida, US. The name VITAS was adopted from the Latin word vitas, which stands for life-giving. The organization preserves patients’ dignity and provides end-of-life care to terminally ill patients (VITAS Healthcare, n.d. a). It offers spiritual, mental, physical, and emotional relief to patients and their families. Further, the agency is to advocate for the rights of end-of-life patients and their families.
Key Stakeholders
The partner organizations of VITAS Healthcare are:
- Health systems and hospitals (physician and nursing facilities, capitated organizations, home healthcare agencies, emergency departments, and accountable care organizations).
- Agency staff.
- Private insurance and health plans.
Relationship and Responsibility of Stakeholders to the Agency
A partnership between VITAS and health systems and hospitals directly addresses the problem of high need/high-cost patients (HNHC). The stakeholder is responsible for referring advanced illness patients to the agency (VITAS Healthcare, n.d. b). VITAS has a mutually beneficial relationship with its employees partners with health plans and private insurers (VITAS Healthcare, n.d. b). The stakeholder is responsible for developing policies against pre-existing conditions to engage patients.
Information for Stakeholders
Hospice evaluation aids in gathering information on the characteristics, support, and program costs. It enables health systems to identify the needs of palliative patients and create relevant, patient-centered social support and treatment options (VITAS Healthcare, n.d. b). Secondly, the VITAS Healthcare agency staff can use program evaluation information to establish the best care for individual patients and their families. Lastly, the figures gathered from the program evaluation can help health plans, and private insurers determine the appropriate elements and insurance to offer clients.
Common Interests and Differences
All primary stakeholders of VITAS Healthcare are concerned about patients’ eligibility for end-of-life care. Health systems and hospitals use Medicare guidelines to establish patient eligibility. The policies require that physicians certify that a person is terminally ill and likely to die within six months (VITAS Healthcare, n.d. b). Finally, health plans and private insurers want to know if their clients will be signed up for the program to find effective ways of helping them mitigate financial risks and costs.
Goals and Objectives
The goals and objectives should be reviewed when exploring the agency’s scope of practice and understanding its performance at large. This section focuses on identifying VITAS’s served population description, its goals, and objectives in serving that population. This information is essential for setting a background for a proper evaluation procedure to determine whether the goals and objectives have been achieved.
Description of Agency and Population
VITAS healthcare aims to provide palliative care to terminally-ill patients. The organization’s mission is to provide the highest quality of case management, human services, and products to patients with limited time to live and their loved ones (VITAS Healthcare, n.d. a). It offers hospice care services throughout America in fourteen different states. The primary population served by the organization is terminally-ill patients who have less than six months to live and their families.
Goal and Objectives
Goal
The goal of VITAS Healthcare is to preserve the quality of life of terminally-ill Americans who have less than six months to live.
Objectives
- VITAS Healthcare will provide free support services to its partners in specialty and private practices, care facilities, and hospitals between 2022-2023.
- The agency will relieve each patient and their families’ spiritual, emotional, physical, and mental suffering for six months before they die.
- VITAS will promote the independence and dignity of patients and help them find 100 percent personal fulfilment in the six months’ palliative care period.
Name: ___________________ Date:_______________________
SCWK 633 Advanced Research
Logic Model Assignment
To evaluate the agency’s performance in a proper manner, one should employ a reliable logical framework for analysis. In this section, VITAS’ operations are analyzed within such fields as input or resources, activities carried out to achieve goals, outputs, outcomes, and the program’s impact. Such an evaluation approach helps a researcher perform a structured and comprehensive interpretation of the research results.
Inputs
The resources needed for VITAS Healthcare to operate are team members and technology. The care team members should include social workers, nursing practitioners, caregivers, physicians, and spiritual leaders. Since the organization does not operate in a traditional setting, such as a clinic or hospital, the staff is equipped with unified endpoint management systems, such as iPhones, laptops, Internet of Things (IoT) devices, and desktops.
Activities
The activities carried out by VITAS Healthcare include home care, inpatient hospice services, personalized care, and spiritual and emotional support.
Outputs
The outputs of VITAS Healthcare include community presentations, staff training, and campaigns. The organization trains its employees to offer culturally sensitive care. Additionally, it carries out community presentations through sales representatives, who educate people on the program’s benefits (VITAS Healthcare, n.d. b). Lastly, VITAS conducts campaigns to drive awareness conversations.
Outcomes
VITAS Healthcare has remained in operation for over forty years, caring for more than sixteen thousand patients daily. The agency has expanded into fourteen states in America, embraced technology, advanced its support services to deal with patients’ constantly changing needs and conditions and created disease-specific care protocols (VITAS Healthcare, n.d. a). Lastly, the organization has trained over eleven thousand professionals through in-person training, campaigns, and webinars that educate professionals on how best to care for patients.
Impact of the Program
VITAS Healthcare has achieved its goals and is making a difference in the lives of the patients it serves. The organization has ensured patients and their families experience peace of mind and are comfortable as they anticipate the death of their loved ones (VITAS Healthcare, n.d. a). It has significantly reduced pain among terminally-ill patients and has helped strengthen their hope that they can be maintained and celebrated through end-of-life care treatment.
References
VITAS Healthcare. (n.d. a). Values, Mission and Vision. Web.
VITAS Healthcare. (n.d. b). Partner Organizations. Web.