About Us

About us

Our Mission

Hospice of New York is committed to the total care of the patient who is facing a life-limiting illness, care of his/her family and caregivers, the development of the community's healthcare delivery system, and the conservation of healthcare resources. This organization will maintain the ethical framework and the standards of excellence in which the staff can fulfill its commitment to deliver the highest quality spiritual, emotional, physical, and psychosocial care of our patients and families.


Hospice of New York is here to help.

Woman in Wheelchair

Our Story


The hospice journey of our founders, Michael and Vada Rosen, began in  1978 when Vada completed Hospice of Miami’s very first volunteer training. It, like so many hospices across the country at the time, was an all-volunteer hospice. With only one licensed nurse, the number of patients Hospice of Miami could care for was limited to say the least.  Later that year, at the first National Hospice Organization meeting in  Washington, DC, the then Health and Human Services Secretary, Joseph  Califano, announced Medicare would grant 26 demonstration programs across the country. Michael and Vada worked to complete the application and Hospice of Miami were awarded one of the demonstration grants. This funding enabled the hospice to reach out and serve many more patients and their families. 


After much lobbying, testifying before Congress, and rallying hospices across the country, hospice was added as a Medicare benefit in 1982.  Michael, as Chair of the Licensure and Reimbursement Committee of the National Hospice Organization, worked to finalize the Conditions of  Participation, the rules and regulations that, with a few changes, still exist today.


After moving to Jacksonville, Florida, Michael and Vada were tasked to open a hospital based hospice. This was the very first hospice to be licensed under the very first state licensure law in the nation. Michael was named administrator and Vada worked as both an inpatient and home care hospice nurse.


Later, the opportunity to do what they loved, in the city where they grew up, was too exciting to pass up. In 1996, they applied for and were granted a New York Certificate of Need for a new hospice. In February of 1997 Hospice of New York’s first employees began their orientation and the first patient was admitted that summer. 

   

Over 23 years later, the first RN hired is still with HONY and now teaches and orients new staff. Many others have stayed with us as well through the years. 


With a dedicated and skilled staff, HONY has served almost 20,000  patients, and in many ways, has changed hospice care in New York forever, and for the better. Today, our hospice is about those wonderful staff and the patients and families they have cared for. On this site they will share with you some of their stories, stories about where the hospice journey has taken us all.

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