Taipei City Government

Taipei City Hospital (TCH) is promoting “Urban Community Hospice Home Care Service” where, through an initial assessment, doctor’s examination and the signing of a consent letter, patients are able to be transferred from health institutes, palliative care clinics or wards by family members to receive community hospice home care, and choose a comfortable and dignified way of death.
To encourage patients “to die at home”, the National Health Insurance (NHI) Administration included “community hospice care” within its health insurance coverage; since then, there have been 1607 TCH hospice shared care visits from January to November 2014; among these, 33% of TCH Yangming branch’s intensive care patients had signed a “do not resuscitate order” (DNR). This shows that there is an increasing wish (by 30%) for passing away at home and need for hospice care in an aging society.
Besides providing family meetings for terminal patients and family members of the community, continuing to provide hospice care and bereavement care, and promoting the signing of a “Letter of intent for advance hospice and palliative care cum life support option”, TCH also holds Class B community hospice care training for members of TCH’s normal home and hospice home care teams.
Based on the hospice care model of the Jinshan Branch of National Taiwan University Hospital, TCH aims to transform the program into “Urban Community Hospice Care Service”. Studies and planning are underway to promote a “hospice home care group” within various branches to provide the public with “friendly community medical care and home hospice” services, and help patients fulfill their last wish, that is, to die with dignity.