True to the region’s spirit, West Park Hospital’s board and staff are constantly looking for ways to improve the availability and delivery of health care in the Big Horn Basin. Several years ago, the staff and volunteers of Spirit Mountain Hospice recognized a growing demand for inpatient hospice services.

Helping patients remain at home until the end-of-life is Spirit Mountain Hospice’s top priority. For many, however, staying home is not a viable option. The hospital offers a variety of quality health care services, but most people prefer spending their precious final days in a home-like setting with family and friends. Hospitals and nursing homes are not designed to provide the intimacy desired for such private and cherished family time. In an effort to meet this need, Spirit Mountain Hospice will expand its current services:

• To provide an eight bedroom hospice house that serves up to 100 patients per year with a projected average stay of 29 days.

• To improve end-of-life care by offering a residential home for 24-hour safe and supported care.

• To fill the current gap in inpatient hospice services within a 100 mile radius of Cody.

• To eliminate the sense of isolation and loneliness for those coping with a life limiting illness.

• To provide short-term residential care for patients who do not need hospitalization but can benefit from pain or symptom control.

• To provide short-term respite for caregivers' relief.

• To provide a homelike setting for patients and families who find the last days or hours too difficult to handle alone. (These patients currently turn to ERs, hospital stays or nursing homes.)

Spirit Mountain Hospice is striving to meet community needs by building an 8-bed hospice house. After enlisting the services of hospice professionals who closely examined the region’s population dynamics, disease occurrences, age demographics and the hospital’s financial capabilities, Spirit Mountain Hospice has determined that a new 10,000 square foot hospice house will include:

• 8 private inpatient bedrooms with private bathrooms, family nooks and patios

• Meeting rooms, living room, kitchen/dining room, small chapel, nurses station, counseling rooms, laundry room

• 24/7 professional staff including registered nurses and certified nursing assistants

• Additional staff includes: social workers, chaplaincy and volunteers

• West Park Hospital will provide pharmacy, meals, medical supplies and administrative support

With these facts in hand, coupled with the knowledge that Spirit Mountain Hospice can serve enough patients to keep an inpatient hospice house financially viable, community leaders have agreed to help initiate a $4,000,000 capital campaign. Funds will be used to build, furnish and equip a state-of-the-art inpatient hospice house to ensure care of patients and their loved ones as they experience the final stage of life.

Our community and its surrounding areas are becoming home to a growing elderly population. A significant number of “Baby Boomers” are predicted to choose Cody and the Big Horn Basin for retirement and will not have family support in the area.

• Adults 65 and older currently represents 28% of Washakie, Hot Springs, Park and Big Horn counties combined. This population (over 65) will result in increased numbers of the terminally ill. The Wyoming Division of Economic Analysis predicts an increase of 7% for this demographic group by the year 2020.

• Currently, there is no inpatient hospice care within a 100-mile radius of Cody.

• Many areas in the Big Horn Basin have no hospice services at all.

• The Hematology/Oncology Center located in Cody has provided statistical information indicated that over 100 deaths per year occur in the Big Horn Basin related to a terminal diagnosis. A majority of these patients could have benefited from an inpatient home.

• Greater than 40% of the hospice patients already admitted in local outpatient hospice services could have benefited from a short-term placement in a hospice home due to lack of support, need for caregiver respite or acute symptom management.

• The Big Horn Basin has a serious shortage of nursing home beds, leaving few options for hospice patients.

• Numerous patients who have died or are dying in West Park Hospital’s nursing home and hospital could have benefited from a hospice house.

• Local families needing inpatient hospice care have two options, the hospital or a nursing home and there is always a waiting list… even when hospice care is needed immediately.

Building in northwest Wyoming is expensive, and when one considers the fact that building an eight bed hospice house is similar in requirements to building a 10,000 square foot hospital, it comes as no surprise that cost estimates range from $350 – $400 per square foot. Important in-room amenities will include oxygen, suction, additional electricity, overhead fire sprinklers, ADA compliant bathrooms and doors wide enough for the passage of wheelchairs and/or gurneys. An itemized cost estimate includes:

EXPENSES:

Cost for patient Space: $2,000,000

Office/Community Space: $500,000

Garage and Circulation Space: $300,000

Land and Site Work: $250,000

Design and Professional Fees: $300,000

Contingency (10%): $350,000

TOTAL: $3,700,000

In addition to the community’s support, West Park Hospital is contributing to the campaign in the following ways:

• All gifts donated to this campaign will go directly towards the Spirit Mountain Hospice project. Additional funds raised are placed into the Spirit Mountain Hospice “Cares Fund,” which ensures than anyone needing an inpatient hospice room, regardless of ability to pay, will receive the proper care.

• West Park Hospital has made two (2) significant contributions to the campaign: providing the land and paying for fundraising counsel. This combined gift will be in excess of $500,000.

• Spirit Mountain Hospice’s new residential home will benefit from economies of scale by sharing overhead with the hospital, which includes but is not limited to medications, staffing, billing, food services, equipment, laundry and maintenance.

• West Park Hospital is a long-standing community asset that is committed to ensuring the continued availability of inpatient hospice care.

• West Park Hospital’s board, employees and pysicians will be the first individuals to support this effort.

"In-home care" is always our first preference, but sometimes symptoms become just too difficult to manage at home. Sometimes an illness is so extended that every one becomes exhausted and sometimes patients don’t have family or friends capable of caring for them 24-hours-a-day.

Age demographics are changing. It is projected that Wyoming will shortly replace Florida with the largest per capita elderly population. West Park Hospital and Spirit Mountain Hospice have strong reputations as premiere health care providers in the Big Horn Basin and are experiencing a growing referral base from Lovell, Worland, Greybull, Basin and Thermopolis. These facts, coupled with an aging population, will lead to a greater need for inpatient hospice care.

The community has made it clear that it supports the mission of Spirit Mountain Hospice to provide quality end-of-life care by building a hospice house in
Cody, Wyoming.

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