{"id":194989,"date":"2025-07-20T21:03:22","date_gmt":"2025-07-21T02:03:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=194989"},"modified":"2025-07-21T21:27:22","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T02:27:22","slug":"chp-home-care-hospice-celebrating-50-years-in-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2025\/07\/20\/chp-home-care-hospice-celebrating-50-years-in-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"CHP celebrating 50 years of service"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Greg Yinger\/<\/strong>special to the VW independent<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

CHP Home Care & Hospice is celebrating a half century of providing home-based health care services in northwest and west central Ohio. The non-profit, 501c3 organization was incorporated in December of 1974 and served its first patient on March 1, 1975. Dr. E. E. White, a local physician, initiated the establishment of a home health care service because Van Wert County was one of five Ohio counties at the time that lacked these services.
 
Dr. White hired Donna Grimm, a registered nurse, and with the help of a $3,000 grant from the United Way of Van Wert County, Van Wert Area Visiting Nurses Association \u2013 later changed to Community Health Professionals (CHP) \u2013 was established.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The agency quickly grew and a branch office was opened in Paulding County in 1979. It also became the parent agency for Van Wert Women Infants and Children (WIC) a short time later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1984, CHP became one of first hospice agencies in the state of Ohio. Offices were added in Celina and Delphos by 1993. CHP acquired Helping Hands Home Care in 1995 and expanded its service area to include Lima. The Angel Foundation was also established that year, which was the first program to provide wishes to terminally ill adults.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
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CHP held a 50th year celebration at a recent Van Wert LIVE\u2019s Feel Good Fridays! concert at Fountain Park. The Van Wert Area Chamber of Commerce presented CHP president\/CEO Brent Tow with a 50-year milestone award as CHP staff members looked on during the staff appreciation event. Bob Barnes photo<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

More branch offices in Archbold and Ada opened in 1997, and an adult day center (ADC) opened in Van Wert in 1998, providing monitored day programming for elderly and disabled adults. Centers were established in Celina and Archbold shortly after. CHP also acquired an office in Defiance that year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The organization became Passport-certified in 2001 and expanded its Medicaid nursing services. An inpatient hospice center in Defiance was opened in 2007, becoming the 12th such facility in Ohio, and it has since provided end-of-life services to around 4,700 patients. The CHP office in Bryan was established in 2013.
 
Staff longevity<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brent Tow, CHP President\/CEO, has been with the organization for 23 years, and one of the things he attributes to the success of the organization is retaining staff.
 
\u201cA lot of times in healthcare, you see a lot of turnover. I\u2019m in my 23rd year as president\/CEO,\u201d he said. \u201cThere have only been two president\/CEOs over this entire 50 years.\u201d
 
He added the director of clinical services has been with CHP for 33 years, and the former vice president of finance spent 29 years with CHP. He said its common for a staff member to have 10-plus years of experience with CHP.
 
Community-based<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

He added the staff is local and understands patients and needs in the community.
 
\u201cAll of our nursing staff is local, so we\u2019re not owned by a third party. We\u2019re not owned by a company,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are all locally owned and governed by a board of directors that has one board representative from every county that we service.\u201d
 
The community has played a big role in the organization\u2019s success and ability to succeed, and the organization is very community-oriented. In one case, Tow explained a situation in which a tobacco cessation program was created for and named after a local veteran who wanted to quit smoking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn our rural communities, everybody knows everybody, and I think word of mouth is really going to keep that growth and positivity of saying, \u2018We had a good experience here,\u2019\u201d he said.
 
Challenges<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tow added one challenge for the organization comes down to the moment someone finds out a loved one will need hospice or home care. Tow said once that moment hits someone, they typically will agree with the fastest and easiest option. In order to keep up with referrals, this means the organization has to keep close ties with industry partners.
 
\u201cWe really work hard now in developing close relationships with the decision makers, case managers, hospitalists, discharge planners, and social workers\u2026those types of people in the hospitals and other facilities,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s really important that we stay in good communication with them, work with them well and follow up to any concerns they have and keep communication lines wide open.\u201d
 
Another challenge he highlighted was managed care companies.
 
\u201cThat is completely different from the type of traditional Medicare coverage that we used to deal with,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s becoming harder and harder for agencies like us to not refuse anybody based on their ability to pay because with some payors, there\u2019s vast differences between what one of these managed care companies could pay.\u201d
 
Responding to future challenges<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For continuing the organization\u2019s growth into the future, Tow highlighted the need to keep up with retaining quality staff.
 
\u201cI think our key for growth is efficiency and having good staff that we can really lean on to continue to do excellence in care and keep us moving forward as an agency by strong word-of-mouth and strong quality of the care that we do,\u201d he said.
 
Additionally, Tow added CHP\u2019s mission is to not only care for the patient but for the family, as well.
 
\u201cThere\u2019s nothing worse than feeling that your loved one is suffering and you feel helpless that you can\u2019t do anything about it,\u201d he said. \u201cIt really, really benefits the family members, too, when our nurses can jump and run and get out to the homes in the middle of the night and resolve that issue, if it\u2019s a pain issue, especially, and it brings comfort to the family, as well as to the patient, because every body\u2019s under stress when you have a sick family member.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Greg Yinger\/special to the VW independent CHP Home Care & Hospice is celebrating a half century of providing home-based health care services in northwest and west central Ohio. The non-profit, 501c3 organization was incorporated in December of 1974 and served its first patient on March 1, 1975. Dr. E. E. White, a local physician, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-194989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-04 04:47:50","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194989"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194989\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":195058,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194989\/revisions\/195058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}