Third Star for Veterans Program
NorthBay Hospice has now earned its third star in the four-star "We Honor Veterans" program.
The program is designed to help NorthBay Hospice improve its ability to serve our community's veterans and their families, and to ensure veterans have access to quality end-of-life care, according to Linda Pribble, Hospice volunteer and bereavement coordinator. NorthBay's We Honor Veterans program is a partnership with National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization, in collaboration with the Department of Veteran Affairs.
NorthBay Hospice launched the program in the fall of 2015 and Pribble and her team have spent the past year reaching out to local veteran organizations and taking the message out to the community. To earn this third star, NorthBay Hospice developed and strengthened relationships with Solano County's department of Veteran Services, CAL VET (California Department of Veterans Affairs), Travis Air Force Base and others. NorthBay Hospice increased its visibility in the community with entries in Fairfield's Veterans Day Parade these past two years, and several volunteers participated in the "North Bay Stand Down" event for homeless veterans, held at the Dixon May Fair grounds in October.
"We also met with a number of politicians, including Solano County Supervisor Skip Thompson representative assistants for Rep. John Garamendi, Sen. Lois Wolk and Assemblymembers Jim Frazier and Bill Dodd," said Pribble.
"We've been working to build our Hospice infrastructure within NorthBay, as well," Pribble said. "With the help of Farida Chettfour, systems analyst; Eileen Smith, business operations manager; and Charla Harrison, hospice director, we are building a model of veteran-specific standards of practice to integrate into our plan of care for each veteran hospice patient."
The group was invited to share the program's goals with the Shared Governance Council in October.
"Nurses expressed interest in wanting to understand and meet the needs of our veteran patients," said Pribble. "Solano County currently has nearly 35,000 veterans, so our hospice and hospitals definitely serve this population, right here, close to home."
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