Barbara Lafrance, RN, MSN, FACHE, Receives the 2024 Ira Byock and Yvonne Corbeil Award

Posted in In the News

The Home Care, Hospice and Palliative Care Alliance of New Hampshire announced Barbara Lafrance, President & CEO of Home Health & Hospice Care (HHHC), as the recipient of the 2024 Ira Byock and Yvonne Corbeil Award for Innovation and Collaboration in Palliative or Hospice Care at their annual meeting yesterday in Concord. This annual award recognizes outstanding achievements in the field of hospice or palliative care that enhance access, quality, and efficiency in end-of-life care for patients and their families.

Barbara has served HHHC since 1998 and has dedicated her career to ensuring excellence and innovation in end-of-life care. Her innovative approach to care coordination has earned her this esteemed recognition. Faced with a challenging gap in care coordination for home care patients with serious illness, Barbara developed one of the first Advanced Illness Management (AIM) programs in NH. This AIM program, led by a Palliative Care Certified Nurse, helped coordinate care for those facing serious illness by communicating patient’s needs and preferences to the right people resulting in safe, appropriate, and effective care. The goal of the AIM Program was to improve the lives of patients by increasing meaningful conversations, developing a plan based on what mattered most to the patient and coordinating that plan with the primary provider and specialists. This important coordination helps to effectively manage symptoms and prevent multiple hospitalizations while providing support to the patient and family.

Barbara also designed and implemented the Final Days program to help increase crucial social work support to families whose loved ones are in the last week of life. The Social Work team helps to identify complicated grief and provide counseling to help the family through a difficult time. As a complement to this program, HHHC staff identifies what the patient’s needs and desires are and then works to grant final wishes. A wish might be as simple as a special meal or something more complex requiring transportation, such as a trip to the beach.

Lastly, Barbara was pivotal in obtaining a multi-million dollar grant from the Steele Foundation for Hope, an international foundation based in Bedford, NH, for the construction of six additional patient suites at the Community Hospice House in Merrimack. This new construction also included a staff training room, additional bereavement support space, an enlarged kitchen and new laundry facility to support the additional patient rooms. The Community Hospice House, one of only two hospice houses in the state, can now serve over 500 patients a year in New Hampshire and will have access to the finest end-of-life care.

The Ira Byock and Yvonne Corbeil Award for Innovation and Collaboration in Palliative or Hospice Care was established in 2013 to recognize exceptional achievements in hospice or palliative care that improve access, quality, and efficiency of end-of-life care for patients and their families. The award honors the legacy of Dr. Ira Byock and Yvonne Corbeil and celebrates individuals who have made significant contributions to advancing hospice and palliative care in New Hampshire.

Congratulations to Barbara Lafrance!