Introducing the interdisciplinary group – your care team
When a patient begins service with Centrica Care Navigators, they’re connected with an interdisciplinary group (IDG), the team of specialists who take care of them throughout their time in end-of-life care. There are four positions that are required to be part of an IDG, and we feature all four:
Hospice physician
A doctor specializing in end-of-life care. They don’t replace the provider a patient may have been seeing for the last several years, or possibly decades. Instead, they complement that provider by helping to control the pain and symptoms of serious illness the patient has.
In other words, a patient with a serious lung disease who is expected to live less than 6 months will have a hospice physician to support them and provide care, especially related to the lung disease — but if the patient has the flu, they will still be able to visit their long-time provider for a prescription (if appropriate).
Registered nurse
The nurse may be the IDG team member a patient sees the most. They work closely with physicians to evaluate the patient’s needs and provide compassionate care. They also keep track of everything they’re doing with a patient and answer any questions the patient or their family might have.
The Centrica Care Navigators team never wants to make medical care confusing or take over care — the goal is always to help the family in the ways they need help. Nurses visit patients at least once every other week, and more often if needed. A nurse will always be available to answer questions also.
Social worker
Sometimes, a patient or their loved ones need information on topics like transportation to and from doctor visits, funeral arrangements, and advance care planning. Other times, a patient just needs to someone to talk with. Social workers support patients and their loved ones by gathering information and helping them navigate what can be complex and confusing issues related to the end of life.
Chaplain
A patient doesn’t need to believe in any particular faith — or have religion at all — to benefit from visits with a chaplain. It’s no surprise that people at the end of life have a lot of questions about what happens after death. Chaplains help answer those questions. Like social workers, they’re also a kind, friendly visitor to patients who just need to talk.
They aren’t interested in converting anyone to a specific religion (and if a patient doesn’t want a chaplain’s services, that’s OK too). As part of an IDG team, Centrica
Care Navigators chaplains are there to provide comforting care in whatever way they can.
Going above and beyond
Physicians, nurses, social workers, and chaplains are required to be available to patients as part of an IDG team, but we go above and beyond that team with even more specialists.
Hospice aide
Hospice aides help with the day-to-day tasks of living, the things that everyone needs to do that can be especially challenging when someone with a terminal condition is trying to do them.
Hospice aides support patients with personal care, like bathing and using the toilet, and light housekeeping, like emptying trash or sweeping the floor in a room. At the same time, they’re doing something that may be even more important: talking with patients, getting to know them as people, and making them as comfortable as they can be.
Grief support counselor
For the loved ones of a Centrica Care Navigators patient, grieving their death may begin before that person has died. After a death, grief never goes away but becomes part of a person’s life — people “grow around their grief” as they continue living.
Centrica Grief Support counselors help with the grieving process in a variety of ways. They encourage family members to join grief groups to meet others who have had a similar loss. They also offer information on methods to cope with grief and remember the person who has died. Services can continue for a family for more than a year after a death.
Volunteer
Volunteers often visit patients multiple times a month, often just to visit with a patient who is looking for some company (and to give a caregiver like a spouse some time to themselves). A patient and volunteer may talk about their day or look back on their lives so it can be captured in a Story Catcher recording.
Our most popular volunteer visits, though, may very well be the stops our pet therapy dogs make, waiting quietly by a patient’s bedside while they are petted.
Music therapist
Many patients enjoy hearing a favorite song or singing a beloved hymn. They can do that with the support of a Centrica Care Navigators music therapist. There’s more to a music therapist’s visit than simply playing guitar; hearing is typically the last sense a person has, and music can help a patient’s emotional state in ways medicine might not be able to.
A mission of care
Why do we go above and beyond by featuring these additional IDG members? It’s part of our mission to provide “compassionate medical, emotional, spiritual, and personal care.” A chaplain can definitely provide spiritual care, for example, but so can a music therapist — and both offer emotional care, too.
Together, the IDG team works with the patient and their caregiver to develop a plan of care, which details the support a patient needs. It’s updated as necessary while the patient’s time in end-of-life care continues.
The plan of care, just like the IDG team members who help put it together, is dedicated to the patient and their loved ones, to give them a quality experience throughout their time with Centrica Care Navigators.
You can learn more by exploring our website or calling Centrica Care Navigators at 269.345.0273.
