The Mercy Hospice House, an end of life care wing of Mercy Hospital, officially reopened this week after a five-month-long closure, according to a Monday news release by Mercy’s owner, CommonSpirit Health.
The hospital wing temporarily closed because of a change in outpatient service ownership and a required licensing review, a CommonSpirit spokesperson told The Durango Herald in November.
The facility transferred leadership of outpatient services to its national entity, CommonSpirit Health at Home, on a for-profit basis in October, with inpatient ownership remaining under its original regional leadership and nonprofit model.
The outpatient change of ownership required the Hospice House to recertify its eight patient beds under Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment regulations after the designation change, Josh Neff, president of CommonSpirit Mercy Hospital, told the Herald in November.
“We are delighted to, as promised, once again offer a dedicated inpatient hospice unit at Mercy Hospital,” Neff said in the Monday release. “This facility, supported in part by generous community philanthropy, provides a warm, supportive, and clinically excellent environment for patients requiring a higher level of care during their hospice journey. It further strengthens our continuum of care, ensuring every individual receives the right care, in the right setting, at the right time.”
The eight beds now being certified under the hospital licensing officially classifies Mercy as a 90-bed facility, the release said.
The Mercy Hospice House – also known as the Mercy Hospice Inpatient Unit – opened in October 2017 at 1010 Three Springs Blvd. with help from more than $5 million in community donations.
Inpatient hospice and palliative care patients were moved to regular hospital beds in an adjacent wing of the hospital during the closure, Neff told the Herald in November.
“Providing hospice care in hospital beds is not unusual, and prior to building the hospice wing, that was the practice at Mercy Hospital,” he said at the time.
Patients moved to the adjacent wing during the closure will be returning to the Hospice House, the Monday release said.
“During this transition, hospice and palliative patient care was uninterrupted, and our patients and families continued to receive the high-quality, compassionate care our community expects,” the release said.
CommonSpirit did not immediately respond to request for comment Friday on how many hospice patients were moved into the other wing of the hospital, whether any patients died in the adjacent wing during the closure or if families were given any discounts or compensation for the move.
