President & CEO, Hospice of Huntington, Inc./Tri-State LifeCare
Photo by Rick Lee
By Jean Hardiman
When it comes to health care, Melanie Hall, president and CEO of Hospice of Huntington, has worked with patients in almost every stage of life.
As a nurse, she worked in OB-GYN, pediatrics and adolescent health care. As an administrator, she has worked with primary care centers that treat adults and children. Her work as an administrator has also involved bringing medical care to schools, expanding dental and behavioral health care, including the early years when medication-assisted treatment first became available to help those affected by the opioid crisis. Today, she leads a team helping patients and families through the later stages of serious illness and final stages of life.
According to Hall, every new journey has been a calling of faith and an opportunity to shepherd projects and organizations through continued growth.
“My path was blessed by being able to build on the great foundations laid by others,” says Hall, a Huntington native who earned her associate and bachelor’s degrees in nursing from Marshall University and a master’s degree in nursing in primary care from West Virginia University. “I always felt that during my time with the baton in my hand during the race I would do all I could to make it better and leave it better for the next person who would come behind me.”
That is exactly what she is doing at Hospice of Huntington, where some of her latest efforts have involved expanding services and treatment opportunities for both hospice patients and patients not yet ready for hospice services by helping the patient and their family care for them as they live with a serious illness. Hall joined Hospice of Huntington in 2014, after 25 years with Valley Health.
“I was not looking to make a career change at that time, but the Lord picked me up from what I was doing and put me into the hospice and palliative care realm,” she says. “I gained a greater appreciation for the work of Hospice because, at that time, my father was battling appendix cancer. I had been in the CEO position at Hospice of Huntington for nine months when he passed.”
Founded in 1982, Hospice of Huntington is a not-for-profit organization that serves a five-county area covering West Virginia and southern Ohio, caring for patients and families through a team of physicians, nurses, aides, social workers, pharmacists, dieticians, clergy, bereavement counselors and volunteers. Services are offered regardless of a person’s ability to pay.
Lately, the organization has expanded options for patients who aren’t quite yet eligible for hospice care.
“We found that people needed help finding qualified, affordable and reliable caregivers to assist them to care for their loved ones,” Hall says. “We started a caregiving program. We found that people with serious illness were having difficulty getting to their medical appointments, so we opened the home palliative medicine program. We found socialization, medical care and caregiving affordability were all needs in our community, so we most recently opened a medical adult day care.”
As CEO, she strives to provide direction to all internal aspects of the nonprofit while monitoring the health care landscape and Hospice’s interactions with its partners in the health care continuum. The role has been a reminder that people with varied talents, personalities and ideas are what make an organization what it is, and leadership involves focused adaptability to help all optimize their assets in ever-changing circumstances.
Hall has found West Virginia to be a fulfilling place to work.
“We have a unique opportunity in West Virginia to improve and strengthen our health care system from the inside, ourselves,” she says. “We are small enough to know each other and work together to make our system meet patient health care needs in an excellent way, each doing our part.”
According to Hall, living in one place your whole life means you’ve known the people you see at the store and their families a long time.
“It changes how you treat them and care for them,” she says. “I am well aware of the problems and challenges in our state. We see them daily. As we love our neighbor as ourselves, we are strengthened to come together to find solutions to our problems.”
Tri-State LifeCare AdultDay
Hospice of Huntington continuously pursues new ways to help the people of Huntington and its surrounding residents, including West Virginia’s first licensed medical adult day care center, Tri-State LifeCare AdultDay. The center provides medical services like speech and physical therapy, dietary counseling and programs for those with dementia, as well as social activities, entertainment and mental stimulation games.
Research and a community needs assessment determined that beyond the need for home-based palliative care, there were needs for socialization, nutrition, personal care, nursing and affordability.
“A medical adult day care center is different than a social center,” says Melanie Hall, president and CEO of Hospice of Huntington. “It provides a higher level of care by always having a nurse on-site while also providing socialization, planned activities, meals and snacks and personal care. Ironically, national statistics reveal that this higher level of support and care is the most cost-effective form of care assistance with better health outcomes for participants.”
The center opened in October 2023 through collaboration with West Virginia Senator Robert Plymale, the West Virginia Bureau of Medical Services and the Hospice Board of Trustees, with Medicaid providing the opportunity for reimbursement through the Medicaid Aged and Disabled Waiver.
Hall would like to see more medical adult day care services in West Virginia.
“We have been gratified to see and hear how this service has helped our participants and their families in their care, in even just a short time,” she says. “We look forward to helping expand this service throughout West Virginia.”
