(March 29, 2018) Ruth, Rick, Alice and Jenny Johnson are providing a transformative gift to launch and sustain a palliative support service to be started by Our Hospice of South Central Indiana. Ruth Johnson commented, “Our Hospice has a long history of doing a lot of good for many people as they provide care during a very significant part of people’s lives, and it is a strong organization that will be here for generations to come. We are happy to support the community through our commitment to Our Hospice.”

The start of this service will benefit our health system. The gift’s impact will be far reaching as Palliative care will be provided in both an outpatient and inpatient setting, including within Columbus Regional Health. “Our Hospice of South Central Indiana has had a vision to bring Outpatient Palliative Care to this community and this lead gift will accelerate the plans we have been pursuing for the past several years; a goal of $4 million needed for long-term sustainability,” said Laura Leonard, Our Hospice President.

Palliative Care is a specialized type of care offering relief from symptoms for individuals with a serious illness. Hospice experts are specially trained in Palliative Care and bring an extra layer of support to patients and families working together with the individual’s physician. Palliative Care differs from hospice care in that it can be provided at any age or stage in a serious illness and can be provided together with curative treatment.

Palliative Care provides services to fill in the gap in the continuum of care when an individual is suffering with unresolved symptoms or side-effects during treatment, Leonard continued, “The generosity of Ruth, Rick, Alice and Jenny Johnson provides the lead funds to launch Palliative Care and bring expert symptom management to those dealing with an advanced illness.”

Palliative Care as a new medical specialty to support patients enduring a serious illness is necessary and important, but is currently only minimally reimbursed by Medicare, Medicaid or Insurance making this service difficult to support. This gift from the Johnson’s jump-starts the program, providing the initial philanthropy needed to operate and sustain this critical type of care.

Jim Bickel, CRH President shared, “I am extremely grateful to the Johnson family for their gift to accelerate our efforts to bring Palliative Care services to our health system and community.  These services will be a partnership between Our Hospice of South Central Indiana and Columbus Regional Health, and will be a valuable service to our patients and physicians. Columbus Regional Health is focused on being your health care partner for life and the Johnson family generosity is an excellent example of how philanthropy is allowing critical work to go further faster to benefit the health and well-being of our region.”

The timing for this outpatient service to start is undetermined but plans are underway to begin deploying the infrastructure for the required electronic medical record as early as late spring or early summer. The population that this program will serve is individuals being treated by their physician for advanced stages of illnesses of the heart, lungs, liver, and kidney, as well as cancer patients.

“We are extremely encouraged by the possibilities that this gift presents,” commented Leonard, “it has been a much needed service in our communities. We are excited to work with our health system partners and very thankful for the collaboration with the Columbus Regional Health Foundation for the continued support to secure additional funds needed for the sustainability and progress of this service.”