Agrace HospiceCare, Inc.

Agrace's mission is partnering with patients and families to improve quality of life throughout serious illness. Agrace's vision is to lead the evolution of hospice and palliative care through innovation, education and access, one patient, one family, one community at a time. Since opening in 1978, Agrace has served nearly 40,000 patients (1978 - 2014). Over it's history, Agrace has served patients whose ages ranged from 8 days old to 108 years old.

Agrace's mission of "Partnering with patients and families to improve quality of life throughout serious illness" is put into practice every day. Yet bringing comfort to patients with life-limiting conditions, and their families, is more than a mission; it's a way of delivering care that addresses the needs of the whole person at a significant time of life. Whether comfort takes the form of physical, emotional or spiritual care, our interdisciplinary team is ready to provide comprehensive hospice services to every person in our community who needs and wants them. Most patients and families want to receive care in the home. More than 95 percent of Agrace services are delivered in patients' homes or in homelike settings such as community-based residential facilities, assisted living facilities and nursing homes. Agrace also makes hospice services available to patients in hospital settings. When in-home care cannot meet the needs of our patients and families, short-term inpatient care at the Agrace campus in Madison or contracted hospitals and skilled nursing facilities may be an option. Inpatient care provides short-term, intensive monitoring and treatment of acute pain or other complex symptoms. Agrace HospiceCare also recognizes the need to provide families a break from ongoing caregiving by offering respite care. Many factors influence where patients and families receive care, wishes and desires, symptoms, the patient's support network and much more. But regardless of the setting, Agrace's team approach to providing compassionate end-of-life care remains the same. Who do we help? Being diagnosed with a life-limiting illness such as cancer, heart disease, lung disease, kidney disease, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, stroke, ALS or AIDS can be overwhelming. Agrace HospiceCare can be there to provide needed support. People whose physicians have predicted a life expectancy of six months or less, are eligible for hospice. Our services are available to people of all ages, incomes, ethnicities and cultural backgrounds. Sadly, many don't realize they are eligible for Agrace HospiceCare until it is very late in their illness, and they miss out on the full support they and their families could have received.