Haven Hospice

*I know I'm way too wordy. I'll mellow that out in time. If you don't want to read everything but want the gist of it, scroll straight down to the bottom section.

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For my first review, I'd like to start with a bang. However, there aren't many bangs in my life right now so I'm going slightly offbeat. This review is about Haven Hospice.

For those unfamiliar with end-of-life care, Hospice is a place that you go when you have a "life-limiting" illness, have a family member with a "life-limiting" illness, or want to be surrounded by old people who are ready to die. Hospice generally focuses on palliative care, and aims to keep people happy and ease the preparation for death for all survivors of the patients. Haven Hospice is a particular care center here in Gainesville. They have been charged with the task of helping our family, specifically my grandma.

I'll give Haven an "A" for the ease of getting into the program, and the value for the money. Bottom line, we all know heathcare is expensive. Between Medicare and whatever magic they use on insurance companies/medical equipment providers we haven't had to shell out one red cent yet (I think). Within one week of dealing with Haven we received an endless supply of medical equipment to help with my grandma's immobility. We've had appointments with nurses, a social worker, and a case manager all at home. Today she was admitted to the main care facility and she's had a doctor's attention as well.

The facility that she's in now is swanky. She's got a private room bigger than some of my friends' apartments. The room has two great views, a lot of comfortable furniture, and a huge bathroom with a shower bench that I'm jealous of. The whole place would get two thumbs up if not for a intermittent high-pitch noise from the central air unit that's incredibly annoying, and the fact that of about 46,000 pieces of art in the building approximately none of them are hung level.

So far they've done a great job of helping, and trying to keep my grandma comfortable. That being said, I'd like to complain. My beef so far with Haven has been a series of miscommunications that have led to annoyance. At least once we received the wrong equipment because Haven failed to communicate properly with their equipment suppliers. A couple of times we've been given conflicting information from different people at Haven. Just today at the Haven facility there was a miscommunication between staff members that led to issues with medication management, which is pretty vital for a hypertensive diabetic vitamin-deficient tinnitus sufferer. Again, nothing dangerous has happened, just a couple headaches for us.

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The skinny:

• Pros: Super friendly and attentive staff, work quickly, they've seen it all, cheap or free through medicare, swanky quarters, lots of home care
• Cons: Minor communication issues, they probably can't keep my grandma alive for the next 80 years

Make an Assessment:

• I would highly reccommend working with Haven Hospice for all of your end-of-life healthcare needs.  They'll treat you with respect and kindness whether you're a spry, dapper, 25 year-old boy or that boy's terminally ill grandma.

Overall Review Score (I haven't figured out how I want to do this yet):

• Grade: A
• Score: 93%
• If it were a movie: ★★★★½
• My Feelings: ☺

You get the idea.