HOUSTON: The social model hospice home, an uncommon prototype for hospice care, may have great promise for resolving some future end-of-life issues. The number of social model hospices is currently small but growing at a steady pace as communities grapple with the question of how best to provide care for their dying members.
However, the social model hospice home is not a new idea. The first social hospices were created during the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s to house AIDS patients as they were nearing the end-of-life and in desperate need of terminal care. Many of these homes were literally private residences with multiple bedrooms where a small number of patients could be cared for and comforted through the dying process.