Skilled comfort care for patients facing the end of life.

Our mission at Tahoe Forest Hospice is to enhance the quality of life, help preserve personal dignity, provide effective pain and symptom management, and support patients and their families physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

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What is hospice?

When the goal of treatment begins to shift from curing the illness to providing comfort care, it is time to consider hospice. Hospice can help the patient and their family understand their options and choose the path that will help the patient maintain dignity and quality of life at the end of life.

Comfort care focuses on pain control and symptom management to ensure the patient is comfortable. This care is customized for the individual, helping patients maintain the highest level of function while honoring their unique circumstances and preferences. Hospice enables patients to focus on living their remaining days at home, among family and friends.

Our team members assures the patient state-of-the-art pain control and symptom management and are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

In addition to comfort care, Hospice assists with daily activities and everyday personal care. Hospice offers patients support not only for physical symptoms, but also for emotional, social, and spiritual needs. This support extends to family and friends, as hospice can help them cope with their own unique emotional and spiritual concerns during a difficult time.

Hello, my name is Jim Sturtevant, Administrative Director of Transitions. I’m director of Home Health, Hospice, and Palliative Care here at Tahoe Forest Health Systems. I’d like to start off by talking to you a little bit about hospice.

People think they know what hospice is, but until you actually have a need for it, you don’t really delve into it. So I’d just like to talk about it briefly and give you a brief description of what we offer in our hospice services.

Hospice is basically for patients who have received a diagnosis that says they have the possibility of dying within six months. It doesn’t mean they will die within six months, but they’ve gotten to a point in their lives where they’ve done all the curative treatment that they can think of doing, and they’ve made a choice now to die with dignity. What we do is help that transition.

And what do I mean by dying with dignity? I mean dying in your own home setting, surrounded by loved ones. Any way that you choose to die is the way you will die, and you will die knowing that you have control of that last process of your life. I mean, we’re all born, we all live, we all pass away.

One of the main reasons I love my job so much is because my father died at 98 years old in my home. Before that, I was the inpatient director at Tahoe Forest Health System, and I was so profoundly moved by the services that my father received that I decided at that point that hospice was my calling. And it warms my soul, I’ll be honest, to tell you that I have been in a position now to provide to people exactly what my father received from this amazing group of nurses and physicians who support our hospice program.

So what does it mean? It means your own family members can call us and give us a referral. Your physician, if you speak with them and you consult and decide that you want to have hospice together at that point in your life, can also refer. The bottom line is we are here to support you. It doesn’t mean you give up hope. It means that you now have hope to have a beautifully dignified end to the wonderful life you’ve led.

And so that’s the way I like to describe hospice. It’s not an ending. It’s just a stage filled with compassion and love, and we relieve a lot of your stress and your anxiety related to this process for both you and your family.

If you want more information, please feel free to reach out to us at area code (530) 582-6378.

Service area

Hospice is a concept of care, rather than a specific place. Hospice care takes place wherever the patient calls home: a house, hospital, nursing home, or long term care facility. Hospice is available to any individual who has been diagnosed with a terminal illness and does not wish to seek curative treatment. Our services are available to patients of any age, religion, race, or illness.

Tahoe Forest Hospice is a licensed and Medicare certified program serving patients in the Truckee/Tahoe area, Incline Village, and Plumas and Sierra Counties, including Calpine, Graeagle, Portola, Floriston, Verdi, Sierraville, Loyalton, Soda Springs, and Emigrant Gap.

Grief support & healing

Through one-on-one counseling, support groups, and other special services, Hospice is committed to assisting families and loved ones work through the grieving process. Adjusting to life without a loved one takes time, and a variety of support services are available. For more information, please call (530) 582-3534.

Contact us

If you have questions or would like to learn more about our services, please give us a call.

Hospice Services, California: (530) 582-3244
Hospice Services, Nevada: (775) 833-0902
Volunteer or Grief Support Information: (530) 582-3534

Tahoe Forest Hospice Statement Regarding Medical Aid in Dying Act