June 16, 2026
Key Takeaways
- A dedication ceremony marked the new partnership among Ohio’s Hospice, The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and the Kobacker family, opening the next chapter for Kobacker House.
- The partnership aims to preserve and expand nonprofit, mission-driven hospice care in central Ohio through the Kobacker Way, a nine-principle framework centered on dignity, family support and reinvestment in care.
- By bringing hospice care into an academic medical center, the partners hope to create a national model that connects compassionate end-of-life care with education, research and future workforce training.
COLUMBUS, Ohio – The next chapter in end-of-life care in central Ohio began with the dedication of the new Kobacker House at Ohio’s Hospice at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center under the Kobacker Way: a covenant for hospice with humanity.
At a ceremony June 12 at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, leaders of Ohio’s Hospice, the Ohio State Wexner Medical Center, and the Kobacker family unveiled the new logo for “Ohio’s Hospice at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center – A Kobacker House.” The event celebrated the next chapter for the Kobacker House and the promise that nonprofit, mission-driven hospice care will continue in Central Ohio for generations to come.
“How a community cares for its dying is the truest measure of its soul,” said Alfred Kobacker, founder and honorary chair of the Kobacker family’s hospice legacy. “The promise our family made does not end. It continues — and it grows — under Ohio’s Hospice and Ohio State. I could not be more grateful, or more at peace, knowing this legacy is in such good hands.”
The partnership brings together three organizations around a common commitment to nonprofit hospice care. Ohio’s Hospice is the largest nonprofit hospice in Ohio and the fifth largest in the United States. The Ohio State Wexner Medical Center is one of the nation’s leading academic medical centers, with longstanding programs in hospice and palliative medicine clinical care, education and research. Together with the Kobacker family, the partners are building what they describe as a national model for mission-driven, nonprofit, academic hospice care.
“We were not handed an asset — we were entrusted with a covenant,” said Kent Anderson, President and CEO of Ohio’s Hospice. “The Kobacker Way is the standard we hold ourselves to at every bedside, in every home, in every community we serve. And it is what we intend to carry, over time, to additional Ohio’s Hospice inpatient facilities — so that this becomes not the legacy of one house, but the standard for many.”
A defining feature of the new partnership is the integration of hospice care into the full academic mission of the Ohio State Wexner Medical Center — patient care, research, and education working together. Under the new Kobacker House, the next generation of physicians, nurses, chaplains, and social workers will learn the Kobacker Way of caring for someone at the end of life.
“The Ohio State Wexner Medical Center is committed to excellence across our patient care, research and education missions. By bringing hospice into an academic medical setting, this partnership with Ohio’s Hospice and the Kobacker family is advancing world-class compassionate end-of-life care that is strengthened by discovery and learning,” said John J. Warner, MD, CEO of The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and executive vice president at Ohio State. “We are proud to be the new home for Kobacker House and even prouder to be the partner where its next chapter begins.”
At the heart of the partnership is the Kobacker Way — a moral framework and operational covenant – that is both philosophy and practice. Its nine core principles are: nonprofit integrity, unyielding dignity, family as partner, home-at-heart with expert-at-hand, relief before cure, equitable access, volunteer partnership, learning and accountability, and community covenant. The Kobacker Way also carries a concrete financial commitment: a minimum of 70 cents of every dollar directed to direct patient care and family support, surpassing national nonprofit benchmarks, with any surplus reinvested entirely into care, training, research, and community — never into investor returns.
The Kobacker Way grew from the founding philosophy of the original Kobacker House, opened in 1989 as one of the first freestanding inpatient hospice homes in the United States. More than three decades later, the family regards the hospice as both legacy and responsibility.
“The logo we unveiled today is beautiful,” said Renée Sparks, RN, Chief Nursing Officer of Ohio’s Hospice. “But the nurses, the aides, the volunteers — they are the Kobacker Way. They always have been. What the Kobacker Way does is put that in writing, and give them an institution standing behind the values they already carry in their hands.”
The ceremony marked the beginning of a longer journey. The partners have identified as a long-term aspiration collaborating on a new, purpose-built, freestanding Kobacker House in central Ohio — designed to unite inpatient hospice care with medical education and research under one roof. No site, timeline, or capital campaign has been announced; the partners describe the vision as aspirational and say that this naming is the first step toward making it real.
To learn more about the Kobacker Way, visit https://www.ohioshospice.org/newark/the-kobacker-way/.
Media Contact
Marti Leitch, Ohio State Wexner Medical Center Media Relations, Marti.Leitch@osumc.edu