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VNA Care Achieves Four-Star Rating in We Honor Veterans

VNA Care is elevating end-of-life care for local veterans by achieving four-star status in We Honor Veterans, a national initiative led by the Department of Veterans Administration and the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization.

Education has been a key component in the process. Staff not only increased their knowledge of veteran-specific needs and circumstances, but also gained a deeper understanding of employing a trauma-informed approach to patient care. Other elements of the program include training veterans to be hospice volunteers so they can build relationships with and support terminally ill veterans, and family surveys to evaluate and continuously improve the quality of care.

Through this initiative, a closer partnership has developed between the Veterans Administration and VNA Care. Case workers from the Veterans Administration are turning to VNA Care for such things as grief support for spouses of veterans, while VNA Care’s hospice social workers are better able to navigate and expedite accessing benefits through the Administration.

Michelle Rosneck, MSW, LICSW, bereavement and psychosocial services manager, said, “It’s helped us save time for people who don’t have time.”

Andrew Tripp, MDiv, PhD, hospice spiritual counselor/bereavement and psychosocial services coordinator, added, “The Veterans Administration knowing that they can reach out to us matters. Knowing that we are here, and we are a support for the bereaved, and our hospice house is available to veterans matters. Awareness of each other and what we both have to offer one another matters so we can do right by our country’s veterans.”

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Michelle Rosneck and Andrew Tripp discuss the ways moral injury and soul injury impact veteran patients using the framework provided by Opus Peace. In a case presentation, Andrew discusses how he assessed and provided care for these concerns with one of his patients.