Hospice of the North Shore and Greater Boston has come a long way from the all-volunteer company that began in a two-family house in downtown Beverly in 1978.
Today it has 385 employees, offers a range of services, not just hospice, helping 550 people each day while serving about 90 cities and towns from the New Hampshire border to Norfolk County communities just south of Boston. The organization plans to open a 20-bed inpatient hospice facility on a 12-acre parcel of land located on the Waltham and Lincoln line.
In 2012, Hospice cared for more than 900 patients who lived within 20 miles of the proposed site. The site includes three acres in Waltham, at 1100 Winter St., and nine acres in Lincoln.
Hospice has been in touch with the Waltham and Lincoln governments to inform them of the plans and learn what is required, said Jean Graham, senior director of marketing.
“We are working on all the architectural and engineering plans to prepare for submitting our applications,” Graham said.
Graham did not have a timeline on the submittal of applications, but she said the process is moving along.
The facility will not be a hospital, a nursing home or a rehabilitation facility, but a home-like setting where hospice physicians, nurses and support staff provide 24-hour care, and where visiting family members can spend quality time with their loved one during the final weeks and days of life, according to the organization.
And starting Jan. 1, the Hospice will take on a new name — Care Dimensions.
In addition to the length and the geography of the old name, there was another reason for changing names.
“As our organization has grown, we really have expanded the array of services that we offer, so it’s more than just hospice,” President and CEO Diane Stringer said.
The new name was announced to employees on Monday and was unveiled to supporters and friends of the organization, whose administrative staff and the bulk of its employees work out of its main offices at 75 Sylvan St. in Danvers, at a party on Tuesday night.
“We realized that there is a lot of confusion and some misconceptions about hospice anyway,” said Stringer. “So people think hospice is like one big national organization. Or all hospices are the same. Or hospice is just for the final days of life.”
The majority of the hospice patients remain at home, though some are in assisted living communities, in skilled nursing facilities, or in group homes.
“The members of our interdisciplinary team – our hospice nurse, social worker, home health aide, chaplain are visiting the patient at home, are helping and supporting and coaching the family to care for that patient at home,” said Stringer.
The organization has been providing palliative care services, first in collaboration with the North Shore Medical Center, but has expanded over the years to include Beverly Hospital, Winchester Hospital, and Emerson Hospital in Concord, as well as providing the care to patients at home through their palliative nursing practitioners.
Hospice also offers grief counseling through the Bertolon Center for Grief and Healing, located at the Kaplan House on Liberty Street in Davners.
In the next month or so before the change takes affect, Hospice will be doing a lot to get the word out about the new name, according to Graham, the senior director of marketing.
“We’ll be doing a lot of advertising and promotion at the beginning of the year, once we switch,” said Graham. “It’s a great opportunity to get the word out about hospice in general. It’s not one of those services that you ever really think about, until you really need it.”