By Kathleen D. Benton, DrPH, MA
President & Chief Executive Officer
Georgia Care Innovators wasn’t created because we wanted a new name. It was created because the community kept asking more of us.
For 45 years, Hospice Savannah has responded to unmet needs by building new solutions. What began as a hospice organization evolved into something much larger—a family of programs dedicated to helping people live better, age better, and navigate some of life’s most difficult challenges. Georgia Care Innovators is simply the name that finally reflects that reality.
When Hospice Savannah was founded in 1979, hospice itself was an innovation. A group of community leaders looked around and recognized that people were dying without the support, dignity, and comfort they deserved. So they built something that didn’t exist.
That spirit never left us. Over the decades, we continued asking the same question: What is missing? What do families need that they aren’t receiving? What do patients need that nobody is providing? What gaps exist in our community?
Each time we found an answer, we built something. We expanded grief support. We created caregiver programs. We invested in palliative care. We developed specialized services for veterans. We created programs for children. We embraced therapies that support quality of life. We helped families navigate serious illness long before hospice became necessary.
Most recently, we brought PACE to Georgia because we saw older adults struggling to remain independent in a healthcare system that often makes aging more difficult than it needs to be.
None of these initiatives were part of some grand master plan. They were responses to unmet needs. Responses to suffering. Responses to opportunities to do better.
Eventually, we found ourselves in an unusual position. The community knew and trusted Hospice Savannah. That was something we never wanted to lose. But many people didn’t realize how much more we had become. They knew hospice. They didn’t always know palliative care. They didn’t always know caregiver support. They didn’t always know grief services. They didn’t always know the growing number of innovative programs helping people live better lives throughout our region.
In some ways, our success created a communication problem. The Hospice Savannah name was strong. Perhaps too strong. People connected with Hospice Savannah so strongly that it sometimes overshadowed everything else we were doing.
Georgia Care Innovators was created to solve that problem. Not by replacing Hospice Savannah. Not by walking away from our history. Not by abandoning the name that helped build our reputation. Quite the opposite.
Georgia Care Innovators exists because Hospice Savannah succeeded. It exists because a community nonprofit founded to provide hospice care spent four decades listening, learning, growing, and innovating.
Today, Hospice Savannah remains one of the most important parts of who we are. But it is no longer the only part. Georgia Care Innovators gives us a way to tell the larger story. A story about hospice. A story about aging. A story about caregiving. A story about grief. A story about quality of life. And a story about innovation.
Most importantly, it tells a story about a community that has never been satisfied with accepting things as they are. We recognize that every meaningful innovation begins the same way: Someone notices a need. Someone decides people deserve better. And someone has the courage to build a solution.
That is how Hospice Savannah was founded. That is why Georgia Care Innovators exists. And that is how we will continue serving our community in the years ahead.
