Aviant Hospice has been named a 2018 Hospice Honors recipient by HEALTHCAREfirst, the leading provider of Web-based home health and hospice software, billing and coding services, Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) surveys and advanced analytics.

Aviant Hospice, serving Southern Nevada, is one of three hospices in Nevada to receive the Hospice Honors designation. The highly regarded industry program recognizes hospices providing the highest level of quality as measured from the caregiver’s point of view.

“We are excited to recognize the 2018 Hospice Honors recipients for their hard work and dedication to providing exceptional care,” said J. Kevin Porter of HEALTHCAREfirst. “I congratulate Aviant Hospice in Las Vegas on its success in achieving this highest of honors.”

Award recipients were identified by evaluating performance on a set of 24 quality indicator measures. Performance scores were aggregated from all completed surveys and were compared on a question-by-question basis to a National Performance Score calculated from more than 1,800 partnering hospices contained in the HEALTHCAREfirst’s Hospice CAHPS database. Hospice Honors recipients include those hospices scoring above the HEALTHCAREfirst National Performance Score on 20 of the evaluated questions.

Shelly Smith, executive director of Aviant Hospice, credits the dedicated Aviant hospice team and Aviant’s CARE philosophy and Gold Standards of Care to being named a Hospice Honors recipient. “Time after time, our clients and their families have shared how compassionate our team – caregivers and receptionists alike – is to them and the difference it makes at this difficult time in their lives,” she said. “HEALTHCAREfirst’s recognition of our work is so meaningful to us and reinforces Aviant’s CARE philosophy covering Care, Advocacy, Respect and Education and our 75 Gold Standards which go above and beyond what other hospice programs provide.”

Medicare has established standards of care that govern hospice patients and their families. In addition to those practices, Aviant adds its 75 Gold Standards. These range from responding to patient and family member calls within 15 minutes regardless of time, visiting newly admitted patients within 24 hours to ensure needs are being met and assessing patients for pain and symptoms during every visit, to keeping families informed of patient status, providing and arranging for alternatives if patients don’t meet hospice eligibility or don’t select the benefit, being available for increased emotional support during the dying process, and attending each death.

Hospice Honors Award criteria was based on hospice CAHPS survey results for an evaluation period of October 2016 through September 2017.

To learn more about the HEALTHCAREfirst Hospice CAHPS survey program and the Hospice Honors awards, visit www.healthcarefirst.com.

Article originally published at nevadabusiness.com