Environments for Aging - Spring 2023 - 13

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Comforts of home
Presbyterian Healthcare Services' Robert Wertheim Hospice
House offers a homelike setting to those in need
Patients and visitors to Hospice
House are greeted by the warmth
of a large stone fireplace, wrapped
by an open living room. A nearby
residential-style kitchen (shown in
background) provides a place for
families to gather and cook a meal
for a loved one.
But first, the organization needed to get fundF
OUNDED
IN 1908, Presbyterian
Healthcare Services, a private,
nonprofit integrated healthcare
system and provider in New Mexico,
began providing hospice care
more than 40 years ago as part of
a pilot program with Medicare. Over the years,
its services have evolved to include a 10-bed
inpatient unit at Presbyterian Kaseman Hospital,
while most of its hospice care is delivered
through outpatient services, mainly training and
supporting family members to care for a patient
at home. " At any given time, we have about 300
or so people around the state that we're caring
for in their home environment, " says Doyle Boykin,
vice president of home health hospice and
palliative services at Presbyterian Healthcare.
Not everyone has access to a supportive home
environment, however, and as Boykin explains,
" New Mexico is a very impoverished state ... we
have a lot of Medicaid-dependent people. " So
various Presbyterian Healthcare Services leaders
and medical directors began envisioning how
the organization could also serve those who
didn't have stable housing or the right home environment
for at-home services, yet weren't sick
enough for hospital-based end-of-life care.
Originally, the idea was to build or modify a
home in the community into a residential care
setting for hospice services. " But we quickly realized
that the type of care and volume of patients
we would see wouldn't render that feasible in the
long run, " Boykin says. Instead, planners set their
sights on building a hybrid concept that would be
designed to residential standards with some clinical
features, such as wider hallways and doorways
to accommodate a hospital bed and equipment as
well as an onstage/offstage configuration to keep
staff spaces separate from public and patient care
areas. " Working from the heart, we wanted to
make it more of a special place for people to spend
their last bit of time, " he says.
ing. Presbyterian Healthcare Services receives a
hospice reimbursement from Medicare, while
room and board costs are covered by the organization's
foundation. Looking to fund its new
concept, the organization reached out to the
community, with donations from two local
families, including former board chair Robert
Wertheim, covering the bulk of the $3.2 million
dollar build. In-kind donations and services
supported it, as well. The healthcare organization
then donated an approximately 10-acre
site on Presbyterian's Northside campus for the
Robert Wertheim Hospice House, which opened
in January.
Architecture firm Dekker Perich Sabatini
(DPS; Albuquerque, N.M.) worked with Presbyterian
Healthcare to design the 7,700-squarefoot,
fully licensed hospice care facility situated
in northeast Albuquerque. Greg Everett, healthcare
design manager at DPS and architect on the
project, says one of the project goals was to make
Hospice House feel inviting to encourage families
and visitors to come. " It's a difficult time, so
we wanted this to feel safe and warm and homelike
for that reason, " he says.
As a result, the facility layout is similar to a
typical home, with a small atrium at the main
entry that leads to a living room, anchored by
spring 2023 | 13
DEKKER PERICH SABATINI
Environments for Aging - Spring 2023

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