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VI. Meeting the Need: The Hospice Care Center and Inpatient Facility HospiceCare's primary focus is and always will be to provide hospice services within a patient's home. To meet these critical needs, HospiceCare Inc., with the support of the community, has developed a plan for a HospiceCare Center and Inpatient Facility. For the very first time in Dane County, patients who require inpatient services will be able to receive care by HospiceCare staff in a comfortable home-like setting. The center will provide space for grief groups and volunteer training sessions and will house the offices for HospiceCare's Dane County in-home hospice services. Over the past two years, HospiceCare has taken a number of steps to evaluate the need and develop a plan for an Inpatient Unit within the proposed HospiceCare Center. HospiceCare met with each of the Madison hospitals to discuss designated hospice beds and the potential for a"HospiceCare Unit" within their facilities. We learned that the high overhead costs of large hospitals would be carried over to a hospice inpatient unit. We also learned that space in a hospital was not available for such a unit. It also became evident that physicians from one health system might not make full use of a hospice inpatient unit if it were located within another system's hospital. In 1997, HospiceCare received encouragement and support from the CEOs of the three hospitals to proceed with plans for a freestanding inpatient facility. • Of 585 physicians surveyed, 98 percent of respondents (37 percent) indicated support for a freestanding HospiceCare inpatient facility. • In community focus groups, facilitated by Chamberlain Research of Madison, participants clearly supported the idea of a HospiceCare inpatient facility. One participant whose wife was a HospiceCare patient stated "Hospice was there for me no matter what time of day or night I needed them. I hired people to come in for my wife. I was like a prisoner in my own home. A respite would be wonderful." • We held extensive conversations with state officials regarding code requirements affecting the building of a hospice inpatient facility. • Thirty physicians, representing all of the Dane County Health Systems, were interviewed to gather information regarding their patients' end-of-life needs and how they might use a hospice facility. The vast majority was supportive of the plan to build a freestanding, noninstitutional hospice inpatient facility. • Site visits were made and interviews held with with more than 30 hospices across the country that have inpatient facilities. These efforts garnered important and valuable information about the design of a hospice facility.