CEO Message

Silverado Hospice’s Mission to Redefine Compassionate End-of-Life Care

When Steve Winner and I founded Silverado in October of 1996, our mission was to change the world for individuals living with memory impairment through the strong dual focus of compassion and clinical excellence. This bold notion of changing the world reached its first occasion to grow past its original inspiration in 2003, when the nurses in our memory care communities suggested that there was a great opportunity to use our care philosophy to help those at the end of their life’s journey.

This suggestion was perfectly timed, for during this period my 85 year-old mother was on hospice and I was personally seeing both the potential of what hospice could bring and the ways in which it could be improved. While my mother’s hospice aides did a satisfactory job of keeping her comfortable and clean, seeing to her physical wellbeing, it seemed that her spiritual wellbeing was not being addressed. Only when a Silverado-trained caregiver was brought in was the potential for a more fulfilling hospice experience realized.

This attention to her spirit and the care team having an understanding of what was important to her – interacting with the family – was what truly made a difference in my mother’s final months of life. This informed the formation of Silverado Hospice. As this focus on nurturing the spirit was something Silverado had been doing since we started caring for our first residents almost a decade earlier, carrying over this philosophy in care, training and hiring over to our hospice business was a natural move. 

After more than a decade and a half of providing compassionate hospice care, we take great pride in the kind words and satisfaction expressed by families that have trusted us during the challenging times surrounding the loss of a loved one. At Silverado, we hold nothing more sacred than when a family entrusts us to ensure the end of their loved one’s life is met with compassion, comfort and dignity.

Loren Shook
CEO and Founder, Silverado