Hospice Nurse Question:

I had been a nurse for about 18 years when I was introduced to hospice. At the time, most of my experience had been in emergency nursing, home health, and psychiatric nursing. Over the past 12 years, I have worked for various hospices, both in Arizona and in California. For the first nine of those years, I worked as a case manager, seeing hospice patients at their homes and in facilities. Much of the time, I worked after hours or on-call.

Often, when working nights or weekends, if a call came into the hospice, I would take the call, either manage it over the telephone, or make a visit. As patient loads grew, many hospices began to use a dedicated telephone triage nurse to take calls and, if necessary, dispatch a dedicated visit nurse or another provider, such as a social worker or CNA, to the patient's location. I began to do that job and have continued, part time or per diem, over the past few years.