Abstract
This research project examines emotional care provided to nursing home residents, prior to them being hospice qualified. Hospice offers a continuum of care that has documented success. In review of the literature, it appears that the nursing home setting provides a set of standards for how needs are responded to that inhibit the type of care hospice is able to provide. By conducting qualitative semi-structured interviews of six employees working in the role of case management in a nursing home setting, an analysis by phenomenological method was done and several themes were found. The following themes emerged: The following themes were found: multiple roles of case managers with the subthemes; intake process and acclimation of new residents; ongoing care with the subthemes; social health, emotional health, medical health and spiritual health; residents with complex issues with the subtheme insurance frustrations. Following the findings, there is a discussion and implications for further study.