North Hawaii Hospice

North Hawaii Hospice (NHH) has provided end-of-life care and support for the North Kohala, South Kohala, and Hamakua communities on Hawai‘i Island for more than 37 years. Its programs include compassionate, quality in-home care for terminally ill patients and their families; grief counseling; education for the community about serious illnesses and preparation for the end-of-life; and care services for people with serious illness who are not quite ready for hospice care. NHH’s support for its community ranges from elderly widows and widowers adjusting to new lives without their spouses to young parents learning how to talk about death and dying with their children.

NHH learned that in 2025 Medicaid would begin covering palliative care, and, with foresight, began preparing in 2024 to incorporate these services into its offerings. Support from the Cooke Foundation helped NHH expand after-hours coverage, add a daytime triage nurse and an outreach nurse to educate community health professionals about the new changes, increase volunteer programs and reach, and transition to a local Waimea medical director, thus ensuring improved support for the increasing complexity of services. NHH also partnered with six other nonprofit hospices to form the Hawai‘i Palliative and Hospice Care Collaborative, creating a state-wide, united effort to address palliative care needs. As new services begin rolling out in 2025, North Hawaii Hospice is poised to serve and lead, as a flexible, cross-disciplinary organization that can respond to the needs of those facing one of life’s most difficult times.

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