Our Mission Hospice By The Bay’s purpose is to provide the highest quality hospice and support services to individuals and families. Hospice By The Bay’s vision is to be the hospice provider of choice in Marin, San Francisco, Northern San Mateo (Burlingame, Colma, Daly City, Millbrae and San Bruno) and Sonoma counties. It continues to work to make a significant impact on families, as hospice patients feel comforted, supported and able to experience an enhanced quality of life surrounded by those they love.
Hospice By The Bay raises funds to: 1) ensure that patients and families have access to our compassionate care regardless of personal circumstance, 2) meet the end-of-life health care needs of underserved populations, and 3) support new and innovative care programs. Hospice By The Bay’s vision is a community where hospice care and support services are accessible to every person and every family who needs them.
Our History In the early 1970s, dedicated volunteers in Marin County, California, recognized the need to start an agency that would provide hospice care -- a new kind of holistic, compassionate care for patients coping with terminal illness that also offered support for their families. Families wanted support so they could care for their loved ones at home or at a long-term care facility. Physicians wanted an alternative to hospitalizing patients at the end of their lives.
In 1975, Hospice of Marin (now Hospice By The Bay) is founded as a community, non-profit hospice, the second hospice in the U.S. and the first in California. Led by volunteers, Medical Director Dr. William Lamers, Jr., the Rev. John Thorton and community advocate Barbara Hill, HOM provides terminally ill patients with compassionate hospice care at home, care that minimizes pain and suffering to improve quality of life. The agency's pioneering work in hospice becomes the model for other stat-up hospice programs around the country, as grant funds allow staff and volunteers to train other healthcare professionals about end‐of‐life care.
As the need and demand for hospice care grew in the Bay Area, so did Hospice By The Bay. In 1992, Hospice of Marin merged with Valley of the Moon Hospice in Sonoma. In May 2003, the agency purchased the Hospice by the Bay agency in San Francisco. In July 2007, Hospice acquired VITAS Innovative Hospice Care in Petaluma.
In 2006, Hospice of Marin was renamed Hospice By The Bay to reflect the geographic area that it now serves -- the counties of Marin, San Francisco, Northern San Mateo and Sonoma.
Throughout its growth, Hospice By The Bay has continued to offer the highest‐quality hospice and palliative care and grief counseling. It continues to add other innovative and compassionate programs to support its patients, their families and the community.
Licensed by the State of California, Hospice By The Bay is Medicare and Medi-Cal certified and accredited by the Community Health Accreditation Program (CHAP).
Hospice By The Bay® and Hospice of Marin® are registered trademarks of Hospice By The Bay.
For more details about our history and background of Hospice By The Bay, please see our Press Room on this website.
