LYNNWOOD—A new hospice office by award-winning healthcare provider AccentCare opened in Lynnwood on Wednesday, October 16, offering the region a new empathetic personal care option steeped in excellence. Hospice and palliative care both provide comfort focusing on pain and symptom management during the end-of-life journey and at death.
“Having a new team here in Lynnwood is exactly what we need,” said Frank Percival, President and CEO of the Lynnwood Chamber of Commerce. “There’s so many seniors and so many folks who need this kind of care so we’re very very grateful to have you all here.”
AccentCare is one of the largest providers of post-acute care of the continuum of care, serving over 200,000 patients nationally every year under the continuum of hope health hospice and personal care services. For hospice in particular the healthcare provider serves around 40,000 patients annually.
Additionally, the company employs over 30,000 highly qualified people nationally and was even awarded the 2024 Accent Care was also awarded America’s Greatest Workplaces for Diversity. Diversity plays a key part of its employment efforts to meet the diverse and culturally unique needs of its patients.
“Every hospice team that we have really customizes the care with the patient and family in mind based on what they want,” Katie Safari, Regional Vice President of Operations at AccentCare told the Lynnwood Times. “I think that hospice is a very fragile time in someone’s life…Ours is a holistic approach of the whole person; It’s clinical, social working, chaplaincy, home help aids, that can provide intimate care.”
AccentCare’s mobile team provides hospice services to meet patients wherever they are, whether that’s home, assisted living facilities, or hospitals. If a patient is diagnosed with a terminal illness, meaning they have six months or less to live, and consented to moving forward with hospice services, AccentCare dispatches a nurse, a home help aid, social worker, chaplain, and/or even a music therapist
Some referrals to AccentCare’s services commence when a physician recommends hospice care to a patient in the hospital as the next step; others are when patients and families contact Accent Care directly. AccentCare then sends out a Hospice Care Consultant or a member of the Patient Experience team to explain the process and what hospice actual means and hopes to accomplish; emphasis is placed on comfort and maximizing a patient’s time, whether that’s days, months, or years.
AccentCare also provides legacy projects that allows patients to tell stories of their lives, watch slideshows set to music, and create fingerprint necklaces for family members if a patient passes. Services are also provided to the “chosen family members” of a patient including family meetings, funeral arrangements, and grief counseling.
Safari shared a story about a patient who wished to visit the beach one last time, for example. The company orchestrated the trip with their family members.
AccentCare also holds an event called Camp Kangaroo to help children dealing with a loss in their life through art and movement to work through their feelings constructively.
At Wednesday’s open house, and ribbon cutting ceremony, approximately 60 community members, including Lynnwood Mayor Christine Frizzell, and members of the Lynnwood Chamber of Commerce, had the opportunity to meet with the AccentCare Lynnwood team and tour the brand-new facility.
Mayor Frizzell shared that often she doesn’t think about hospice care, but recently a friend of hers spent six weeks in hospice, in and out of the hospital. She noted that spending your final days in a hospital is often not the most ideal situation for the patient nor their family.
“We’re so thankful for the services that you provide,” said Mayor Frizzell. “The idea that you can send people to their home, who are trained, who know what they’re doing to help people through those last weeks of their lives and do it with dignity and do it with grace. I just really appreciate that we have those people in our community who have that skillset.”
Natasha Jahn, Hospice Care Consultant at Lynnwood’s Accent Care, shared with the Lynnwood Times the day-in-the-life of an AccentCare professional and why she loves what she does. Her work involved outreach efforts at elder care facilities, educating people on hospice options and ways to improve their end-of-life experiences.
Jahn, who has worked in elder care for over a decade, fell in love with hospice through her own personal experience.
“The family I grew up with had a lot of cultural exchange and one side of the family didn’t really understand modern medicine. My mother got really sick when she was around the age of 60. By the time they found the cancer, doctors said the cure would be almost worse than the disease. My father became her caregiver for about a year, and she had a great experience spending the time with her husband of 40 years,” Jahn shared. “It changed my life to witness my mother have a beautiful end of life experience. Death isn’t going away anytime soon but having that opportunity to improve people’s experience toward the end, I just love that.”
AccentCare’s office in Lynnwood is now accepting patients diagnosed with terminal illness. Its hospice services are covered by most insurances (including Medicare) and even has a nonprofit called Seasons Hospice Foundation which assists those in need of financial assistance.
The new Lynnwood office is located at 3400 188th Street Southwest, Suite 430, in Lynnwood in the Alderwood Business Center. AccentCare plans to hold another open house for their upcoming Tacoma office within a few months.
Author: Kienan Briscoe
