Calvary at Home
Since its founding in 1899, the primary goal at Calvary Hospital is meeting the physical, psychological and spiritual needs of patients and their families. As the nation’s only fully accredited acute-care specialty hospital devoted to providing palliative care to adult advanced cancer patients, Calvary is unmatched in its organization of care and depth of expertise.
Each year, Calvary provides more than 5,700 patients, families and friends with inpatient and outpatient care, home care, hospice, nursing home hospice, care of complex wounds, and extensive support programs for patients, families and friends. It cares for inpatients at its 200-bed Bronx campus and 25-bed Brooklyn satellite at Lutheran Medical Center — the first “hospital within a hospital” in New York State. Patients at the Brooklyn satellite receive the same hallmark care that patients receive at the main facility in the Bronx.
Inpatients, who are in need of acute care at the end of life, receive expert pain and symptom management from the multidisciplinary team. Patients whose symptoms are more stabilized may choose the home setting for care and receive the same level of expertise. Calvary’s complete array of supportive outreach, psychological and spiritual services are together known as “palliative care.”
Calvary@home
In 1985, Calvary established a Cer tified Home Health Agency, for people with chronic and acute illnesses who can be cared for at home. It added a hospice component in 1998, the nursing-home hospice program in 2001 and grouped them under the name Calvary@home. Under this umbrella, Calvary offers comprehensive care to patients at home who are suffering from advanced cancer or other chronic ad acute terminal illnesses.
Calvary offers home care in the Bron x, Queens, Manhattan and lower Westchester and hospice ser vices in t he Bron x , Brook ly n, Queens, Manhattan, Nassau , Westchester and Rockland counties. It offers hospice services in 32 nursing homes in Brooklyn, Manhattan, the Bronx and Westchester, Rockland and Nassau counties.
While a small number of home-based patients will require hospitalization, more than 90 percent of Calvary’s home hospice patients are able to spend their last days comfortably at home. As needed, Calvary@home can facilitate a seamless transition to becoming an inpatient at its Bronx or Brooklyn sites.