Contact: Stephanie Abel-HohenzyCedar Valley HospicePhone: (319) 272-2002Fax: (319) 272-2071

2101 Kimball Ave. , Suite 401Waterloo, Iowa 50704-2880www.cvhospice.org shohenzy@cvhospice.org

PRESS RELEASEPROGRESS EDITION ARTICLE, 2 graphs, 1 photo with caption

Cedar Valley Hospice leads industry, grateful for community support

Waterloo, February 20, 2017: In 2016, Cedar Valley Hospice continued to be the hospice of choice in the communities we serve. It was also a year of change with the retirement of executive director Marvin Fagerlind and Michaela Vandersee’s move to that position. Meanwhile, annual events like Release & Remember, Tree of Love and the Waverly Tour of Homes marked successes.

Celebrating Successes

The fifth annual Release & Remember butterfly release fundraiser on Aug. 28 in Waterloo marked a record attendance and dollar-amount raised, along with Waverly’s 10th annual Tour of Homes, which also saw record attendance and donations. Mark your calendars for the 6th annual Release & Remember event, which will be held on Sept. 10 in Waterloo.

Beyond our fundraising activities, our second annual Grief Camp for kids brought a couple dozen children, age 4-14 together to provide a fun outlet for children who have experienced the death of a loved one. Last year’s theme, A Day at the Beach, offered activities to help teach each child to learn to live with their loss. This year, a Superheroes theme is set for the kid’s camp, which will take place on June 20. If you know of a child that could benefit from a day like this, please call 319.272.2002.

Tackling Challenges

There have been some challenges, most notably the nursing shortage impact on our recruiting efforts. In response, we boosted our marketing efforts to attract the most qualified professionals in the industry. The ever-changing regulatory environment in the healthcare industry is a challenge and also an opportunity to streamline processes. While this keeps us on our toes, we do not take our

FOR RELEASE: FEBRUARY 20, 2017

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responsibility lightly to provide the best care for our patients, and we will continue to strive everyday to ‘Make Each Moment Matter’ for you and your loved ones.

To optimize the benefits we can provide to patients and families, we’ve concentrated on getting earlier referrals and educating the community on the services we provide. Therefore, we’ve focused our efforts on expanding our outreach further within the communities, doctor’s offices and facilities to ensure that people know they have a choice in hospice providers and to ask for Cedar Valley Hospice by name when they need palliative and end-of-life care or grief services.

Supporting our Patients and families

Recently, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released quality of care data. The first dataset is from the Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS), which is a survey designed to measure and access the experiences of patients who died while receiving hospice care, along with the experiences of their caregivers. 2016’s preliminary report shows Cedar Valley Hospice ranking favorably above the national average in several different quality measures.

Our rating for patient care is almost 10 percent above the national average, while our rating for people’s willingness to “recommend” Cedar Valley Hospice was 8 percent higher than the national average. We are also consistently above the national average on measures like “getting emotional and spiritual support,” “hospice team communication” and “treating a patient with respect.” See graphic for more quality measures.

In Waverly, Amy Hamilton Kangas has experienced first-hand how hospice made the difference for two of her greatest role models - her grandmother and her mother.

Her grandmother, Lois, was very adamant that she be served in her own home. After she was admitted to the Cedar Valley Hospice program in 2009, she was assigned her own team of experts who would manage her care at her own residence and provide support for Amy and her family. They all soon realized that hospice isn’t about dying but living life as fully as possible despite old age or a life-limiting illness.

“They provided everything she could have ever needed - medicine, baths, conversation, knowledge,” said Amy. “Because of that, she didn’t need us there all the time. This allowed us to be able to live a little too and have our own privacy. Plus, I could call anytime and their team would have the answers.”

So when her mother was ready to go on the program, it was an easier decision for Amy, knowing the amount of support her family would receive.

Looking ahead

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In 2017, the biggest priority we have is to continue to be the hospice provider of choice in all of our communities. We will do that by:

1. Continuing to be the experts through providing our clinical staff members with ongoing education regarding end-of-life medical care along with new innovations that help our patients manage their pain and symptoms. Our nurses also have a wealth of knowledge with, on average, 18.1 years of health care experience, and we encourage our clinical staff to attain hospice and palliative care certification as well.

2. Being responsive to patient needs 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

3. Providing unique services that patients and families will not have available to them with other hospice providers. Our hospice home is the only stand-alone hospice inpatient facility in our service area, offering an alternative to a hospital visit. Our grief services also provide unmatched support not available anywhere else in our service area.

Ultimately, our goal is provide the highest quality care.

“Cedar Valley Hospice was created by members of our community to serve our family, friends and neighbors within the communities we serve. We never lose sight of this amazing responsibility,” said Executive Director Michaela Vandersee. “The support that we continue to receive every day is a testament to our mission and helps us to develop and grow in order to continue to serve in the best way possible.“

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PHOTOS/CAPTIONS:

Patient graph: 2016 data hows split of patients among our 4 sites (plus totals).

Quality Measures graph: 2016 data shows CVH vs. National Ave. on Quality Measures

Tour of Homes: Two-time Waverly Tour of Homes participant Deb Mummelthei opened her farmhouse again with her family for the 10th and final Tour of Homes in December.

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