November is National Hospice and Home Care Month, but most of us would never know it.

Home care and hospice services continue to be shrouded in mystery and are frequently misunderstood, despite touching the lives of tens of millions of Americans each year, and despite the hundreds of thousands of volunteers who devote hours of their precious time.

We’d love to change that.

The Maine Hospice Council and Center for End-of-Life Care and the Home Care & Hospice Alliance of Maine have decades of experience in advocating for folks on all sides of the hospice and home care experience. We are champions of patient’s rights, and exist to help health care consumers in Maine understand the myriad options available to them for home care and end-of-life care. We are also staunch advocates for providers, from nurses and home health aides, to volunteer hospice programs, to complex health care systems.

We would like to invite readers to submit their questions about home care, hospice, advance care planning, and related issues to us over the next few weeks. Central Maine media will print a selection of the Q&A in November, and the rest of the questions will be available at www.mainehospicecouncil.org and homecarealliance.org.

The Home Care & Hospice Alliance of Maine is a statewide non-profit trade association representing home health and hospice providers throughout the state. The alliance speaks with one voice for affordable, accessible, quality home care. Today, the combined need for continued acute care services with an expanding need to provide end-of-life care and care for those with chronic illnesses, places significant burdens on already stressed health care systems. Clearly, the future of our health care system relies upon home care and hospice, which combine quality of care, compassion and cost effectiveness.

In her role as executive director, Vicki Purgavie is involved in regulatory, legislative and public policy issues, as well as the development of educational programs and membership communications.

The Maine Hospice Council and Center for End of Life Care is the only statewide organization focused entirely on access to quality end-of-life care through collaborative partnerships. The council, incorporated in 1984, implements its work plan through a combination of outreach, advocacy, education, mentoring, consultation and technical assistance.

Executive director Kandyce Powell has a master’s degree in nursing education. Although her academic career was invaluable, she is quick to say that her education in end-of-life care came from the patients and families she has been privileged to meet throughout her life. Her concerns about cultural fears around death and dying, lack of affordability to health care, lack of access for the underserved and disenfranchised, as well as on-going challenges with conversations about serious illness led her to focus her professional career on end-of-life care.

Powell has been instrumental in developing partnerships such as the Maine Pain Initiative, Hospice/Veterans Partnership, Prison Hospice Partnership, and POLST (Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment) Coalition. She is a tireless advocate for those who are underserved, a mentor to graduate students, and a frequent speaker on topics related to end-of-life care.

Findings from a recently published report by the Institute of Medicine underscore our long-held beliefs that access to quality end-of-care should be a priority. So, to celebrate upcoming National Home Care and Hospice Month, we wanted to answer any questions you might have about the world of home care and hospice. Please submit your questions to [email protected], or mail them to Maine Hospice Council, P.O. Box 2239, Augusta, ME 04338.

Kandyce Powell is executive director of the Maine Hospice Council and Center for End-of-Life Care. Vicki Purgavie is executive director of the Home Care & Hospice Alliance of Maine.