The Villages Hospice House, operated by Cornerstone Hospice, plans to add eight to 16 beds plus space for other services.
Architects are working on several options for the project, said Chuck Lee, Cornerstone’s president and chief executive officer. Construction could begin next year.
Cornerstone also will open a 22-bed hospice next month at Orlando Regional Medical Center. The organization also operates hospice houses in Tavares, Clermont and Sumterville.
“We want to make sure we have enough capacity,” Lee said. “Our plan is to expand. Right now, we’re looking at the options we have to do that.”
The Morse family donated land a year ago just east of the current 12-bed Villages hospice building that will be used for expansion.
Lee said the original plan for was to build four wings around a central courtyard. But the geography of the donated land, along with parking and drainage needs, make that plan obsolete.
The Villages Hospice House, which opened in 2003 at 601 Casa Bella, near County Road 466 and Morse Boulevard, now serves about 120 people in the community. Most receive hospice care in their homes, nursing homes or hospitals.
“Most people, if they could choose, want to be in their own surroundings,” Lee said.
Besides more hospice beds, he said the architects are working on plans for other space that could be used for music therapy, massage therapy and bereavement counseling. The current building has a small dining area for families that could be enlarged in another building.
“We want the families to feel like they have a little bit of a getaway space,” Lee said. “We want to create a warm, inviting, safe, compatible space when the end of life comes.”
He said hospice, where the mission is making patients comfortable, is a more appropriate place for the terminally ill than hospital intensive care units, where the goal is saving lives.
Taking care of terminally ill patients is “tougher on the ICU staff,” he said. “It’s not the best use of our acute care resources.”
Medicare and Medicaid cover the costs of hospice care, but room and board are paid by the patients. Costs are assessed on a sliding scale so no one is turned away.
Lee estimated the construction cost at $3 million to $7 million, depending on which options are selected. Cornerstone has been active in fund-raising through its foundation and the Villagers for Hospice organization. The Villages Parrot Heads Club recently donated $22,000 raised through its summer golf scramble.
Lee said the project’s design would not be determined by the cost.
“We want to meet the needs of the community,” he said. “That’s going to define the scope of the project.”
With 15 years of hospice experience, Lee came to Cornerstone nearly three years ago after serving in administrative posts at hospices at Chattanooga, Tenn., and Pensacola. He said he decided to make hospice a career after he was impressed with the quality of hospice care his father-in-law received.
Founded over 30 years ago, Cornerstone is a non-profit organization governed by a board of directors that includes state Rep. Marlene O’Toole, R-The Villages, and Sumter County Commission Chairman Don Hahnfeldt.
Hospices began in England during the 1960s as an alternative to hospital care and the first ones opened in the United States in the mid-1970s. Cornerstone Hospice opened its first house in Tavares in 1984.