Day Kimball Health’s Hospice & Palliative Care of Northeastern Connecticut has earned the 2025 SHPBest™ “Premier Performer” Caregiver Experience Award

Hospice & Palliative Care of Northeastern Connecticut, a service division of Day Kimball Health, has been recognized by Strategic Healthcare Programs (SHP) as a “Premier Performer” for achieving an overall caregiver and family experience score that ranked in the top 5% of all eligible SHP clients for the 2025 calendar year.

The annual SHPBest™ award program was created to acknowledge hospice providers that consistently provide high-quality service to families and caregivers of patients receiving hospice care. The 2025 award recipients were determined by reviewing and ranking the overall CAHPS Hospice caregiver experience score for more than 1,800 hospice providers. With one of the largest CAHPS Hospice benchmarks in the nation, SHP is in a unique position to identify and recognize organizations that have made the family and caregiver experience a priority and have been rewarded for their efforts with high marks on the CAHPS Hospice survey.

"Providing excellent patient care takes relentless effort, and our SHPBest award winners embody that every year. This program lets us recognize the organizations that never settle, that keep improving the patient and caregiver experience even when they're already performing at a high level. That kind of commitment deserves to be celebrated," said Jason Ballet, President of SHP.

This is the first time Day Kimball Health’s hospice program has been recognized by Strategic Healthcare Programs (SHP) as a top 5% performer nationally for caregiver experience, an achievement that reflects the compassion and dedication of the hospice team and the experiences of the patients and families it serves. 

The recognition builds on a history of strong patient and caregiver experience results. In 2022, the program received a five-star rating from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), which includes measures related to caregiver experience. In 2018, the program also received an Award of Distinction from Fazzi Associates, our CAHPS administrator at the time, recognizing performance among the top 25% of hospices nationally.

This latest achievement reflects the collective efforts of the interdisciplinary hospice team, under the leadership of hospice program manager Kim Durand. The team is committed to supporting not only our patients but also their families and caregivers. In recent years, the program has placed an increased emphasis on caregiver support through its bereavement program and the dedicated services of its social workers and chaplains.

Hospice & Palliative Care of Northeastern Connecticut is honored to receive this national recognition, which affirms its commitment to providing compassionate, high-quality hospice care and supporting patients and their loved ones during one of life’s most important transitions. 

“Every day, I am inspired by the compassion, skill, and tenacity of our hospice team,” said Jennifer LeDuc, RN, MSN, executive director, Homecare & Hospice. “For them, this work is more than a job, it is truly a calling, and I could not be prouder of what they have accomplished. Over the past several years, we have worked to expand our hospice and palliative care programs while remaining focused on what matters most: ensuring patients and families feel supported, heard, and cared for during an incredibly important time in their lives. Hospice is not only about providing excellent end-of-life care. It is also about helping people share their stories, preserve their legacies, and write this important chapter of their lives with dignity, meaning, and as much joy as possible.”

For more information on Hospice & Palliative Care of Northeastern Connecticut, visit daykimball.org/athome  

Read more about the SHPBest awards program, including methodology and award recipient lists, at https://www.shpdata.com/hospice/shpbest-cahps-hospice/.