Bereave by Maxwell TEC
Case Study: BEREAVE & St. Croix Hospice

Reframing Bereavement Care

Discover How St. Croix Hospice's Early Adoption of nanaCONNECT's BEREAVE Module is Elevating Grief Support
93%

Reduction in Paper Mailings

32.7%

Engagement Rate

20%

Click-Through Rate (CTR)

Continue to Case Study Demo BEREAVE
St. Croix Hospice
nanaCONNECT BEREAVE Logo

Introduction

Bereavement care has long relied on analog methods—paper mail, postcards, phone calls. But when Maxwell TEC introduced a revolutionary text-based hospice bereavement support tool, St. Croix Hospice saw an opportunity to modernize their program, enhance family support, and reduce rising postal costs.

Caregiver holding senior woman's hands in hers.

After months of thoughtful implementation and planning, St. Croix Hospice went live with nanaCONNECT's BEREAVE module—formerly known as nanaBEREAVEMENT—in 2024, yielding quick positive impacts:

Care Experience Feedback

Real-time feedback from grieving families on support needs, care teams, and hospice experiences enables St. Croix Hospice to respond quickly while fostering unique opportunities for employee recognition and culture building within select branches. 
Care Experience Feedback

Engagement Insights

Increased web traffic and resource engagement visibility highlighted BEREAVE's value in strengthening referrals and enhancing the impact of St. Croix Hospice's bereavement program.
Engagement Insights

ROI Boost

Enhanced bereavement communication boosted engagement (i.e., text responses and website visits) to 32.7% while reducing monthly paper mailings by 93%.
ROI Boost

This early adoption case study showcases St. Croix Hospice’s strategic approach to implementing BEREAVE and how Maxwell TEC's bereavement support tool is delivering immediate benefits for both the hospice agency and the families they serve.

The Story of BEREAVE

Traditional hospice bereavement care often centers around mailed letters offering comfort and follow-up steps. While well-intentioned, these paper-based touchpoints lack immediacy and provide limited opportunities for engagement.

nanaCONNECT - BEREAVE diagram showing various features: care experience feedback, bereavement support tool, cost efficiency, efficient management, personalized messages.

Maxwell TEC reimagined this process with the launch of nanaCONNECT’s BEREAVE module—empowering real-time, meaningful connections between care teams and grieving families through accessible, modern channels. The result? Over 50% reduction in mailing costs for agencies on average and a more responsive, human approach to grief support.

And with continuous enhancements to the technology, even more value is unfolding—which is where St. Croix Hospice’s story begins.

Bereavement Care at St. Croix Hospice

Why BEREAVE?

The team at St. Croix Hospice was driven to explore new bereavement communications options for a couple of key reasons:

  • St. Croix Hospice recognized a need to adapt to societal and technological changes in communication preferences
  • St. Croix Hospice was interested in the potential cost savings and ROI due to rising postage rates
Person holding a paper letter.

Prior to adopting BEREAVE, St. Croix Hospice sent scheduled mailings as well as other periodic mailings (letters, brochures, and resources) and made scheduled phone calls throughout the 13-month bereavement care period. These methods were often time-consuming, lacked immediacy, and provided minimal engagement with families. St. Croix Hospice sought a platform that would modernize this process and enhance communication for the grieving individuals they serve.

While patient engagement apps have grown in popularity, they require downloads, account setup, multi-factor authentication, and more—all of which can complicate an already delicate bereavement process. From the first demo, St. Croix Hospice saw the value in BEREAVE’s simplicity: no apps, no downloads—just compassionate, timely support delivered via text.

Intentional Implementation

St. Croix Hospice was eager to implement BEREAVE but carved out time to consider how best to integrate the solution into their existing bereavement processes for maximum impact.

"We thought hard about, 'If we're going to go into this and we're going to put everything into it, we're going to take the longer route to make sure we're doing everything right.'" – Alyssa Grythe, Manager of Bereavement Services at St. Croix Hospice

Caregiver holding senior woman's hands in hers.

St. Croix Hospice spent the months before going live building out landing pages and curating resources for bereavement contacts. Resources include a thoughtful welcome video by Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Andrew Mayo, and other bereavement resources such as support groups and reading materials.

The Maxwell TEC product team supported St. Croix Hospice throughout the implementation process to ensure a smooth rollout of BEREAVE. Desireé Ardoin, Senior Consultant – Product Adoption at Maxwell TEC, has worked alongside the St. Croix Hospice team from the beginning:

"The seamless implementation with St. Croix Hospice and BEREAVE was a true testament to the power of collaboration and thoughtful planning. The St. Croix Hospice team's proactive approach and dedication to detail made it easy to provide the support they needed, ensuring the system was integrated smoothly and efficiently. It’s a partnership that showcases how preparation and teamwork drive success." — Desireé Ardoin, Senior Consultant – Product Adoption at Maxwell TEC

Exceeding Expectations:
BEREAVE's Unexpected Perks

Care Experience Feedback

When St. Croix Hospice implemented BEREAVE, they knew they'd enhance communication with grieving families. What they didn’t anticipate was the outpouring of meaningful responses, gratitude, and real-time requests for continued support.

Senior texting on his phone.

"We're getting more people texting, ‘Hey, I need additional support today. Can someone call me?’ We're then able to set them up for a same-day phone call, ensuring they get timely bereavement support." — Alyssa Grythe, Manager of Bereavement Services at St. Croix Hospice

Families respond to BEREAVE messages with everything from simple thank-yous and emojis to heartfelt stories about their hospice experience. These messages have become a vital source of insight and connection, helping St. Croix Hospice elevate their bereavement care program and employee culture.

St. Croix Hospice actively monitors BEREAVE messages each day, prioritizing quick follow-ups when someone expresses a need for additional support. But the impact doesn't stop with patient care.

The team also uses this feedback to strengthen employee culture:

Recognizing Exceptional Care Teams

Positive messages are shared with select local branch teams, especially when specific staff members are mentioned by name. These acknowledgments are celebrated and used to boost morale and build camaraderie.
Recognizing Exceptional Care Teams

Improving Programs with Real-Time Insight

Trends in feedback help the bereavement team fine-tune services, identify areas for improvement, and enhance continuity of care. 
Improving Programs with Real-Time Insight

Bringing Patient Stories to Business Development

Messages are shared with St. Croix Hospice's clinical and outreach teams to help demonstrate impact to referral sources and support strategic growth.
Bringing Patient Stories to Business Development

By turning bereavement feedback into a powerful internal resource, St. Croix Hospice can better support their patients' families, their teams, and community partners.

Engagement Insights

By creating targeted landing pages and curated digital resources for their bereavement contacts, St. Croix Hospice uncovered key engagement insights that allow them to measure the impact of their grief resources:

Clinician typing and reviewing information on computer.

32.7% Engagement Rate

One-third of bereavement contacts directly respond to a text message or click the provided link 
32.7% Engagement Rate

20% Click Through Rate (CTR)

On average, SMS messages have a CTR of 19%—St. Croix Hospice's BEREAVE texts boast a slightly higher than average CTR.
20% Click Through Rate (CTR)

3x Page Views Per User

St. Croix Hospice’s targeted bereavement landing pages are each viewed an average of at least 3 times per active user, demonstrating sustained interest and meaningful engagement with grief support content. 
3x Page Views Per User

Traditional mailings offer little to no visibility into how families engage with bereavement resources—or if they do at all. Through BEREAVE, agencies gain real-time engagement data that shows how and when families interact with messages.

Opt-out rates remain under 2% on average, signaling that families value the gentle, ongoing connection, with cases of contacts even re-engaging once they felt ready. These insights help agencies strengthen care, build trust, and shape smarter outreach and referral strategies.

ROI Boost

Beyond the real-time benefit to family support and marketing engagement data, St. Croix Hospice was initially driven to BEREAVE by its ROI potential. While bereavement services are required to meet the CMS Hospice Conditions of Participation, no funding is provided for this aspect of hospice care.

NB_CostSavings_Trad-vs-Text 2

Traditional paper-based bereavement letters can cost as much as $0.75 each and use up agencies’ valuable staff, time, and resources. BEREAVE relieves this cost burden by more than 50% on average for hospice agencies.

St. Croix Hospice saw ROI impact through a significant reduction in their monthly bereavement mailings:

93% Reduction in Paper Mailings

Prior to implementing BEREAVE, St. Croix Hospice sent approximately 8,000 – 10,000 mailings per month. They've drastically reduced this volume by 93% on average, now sending approximately 600 – 700 mailings per month.
93% Reduction in Paper Mailings

Mailing cost savings are just one part of the ROI. St. Croix Hospice’s bereavement team also points to powerful user behaviors enabled by BEREAVE’s personalized support—families returning to text messages, re-engaging with links, revisiting resources, and even sharing content with others. These patterns drive measurable value in both brand impact and family engagement for St. Croix Hospice.

"Truly the significant ROI besides, of course, the insight provided by the text messaging responses is being able to individualize our bereavement support and brand it for our organization. Because the messaging and content is 100% St. Croix Hospice-specific, families are so much more engaged than they would be if it was just generic messaging. We invest significant resources in our bereavement support and work hard to tailor our care to what we have learned families really need and are looking for. The BEREAVE platform has allowed us to take that next step to meet those needs." — Abbie Neisius, Vice President of Care Services at St. Croix Hospice

Bereavement Support That Meets Families Where They Are

BEREAVE is one part of a multi-channel bereavement support strategy at St. Croix Hospice. The module flags contacts without mobile phones, helping bereavement staff easily identify who should receive paper mailings instead. Families can also opt out of texts or switch back to direct mail at any time.

Caregivers hands holding an elderly person's hands.

"I think this is a wonderful system, and I just can't wait to continue to watch it grow and adapt." — Alyssa Grythe, Manager of Bereavement Services at St. Croix Hospice

The story of St. Croix Hospice and BEREAVE is far from over. As Maxwell TEC’s expert product team continues to innovate and develop this bereavement support technology further, we believe St. Croix Hospice will continue to reap the benefits and ROI of modernization, while families benefit from the responsiveness and flexibility of this innovative support.

"BEREAVE is revolutionizing bereavement support by connecting with people on their preferred communication channels, offering direct access to essential services. The ROI for BEREAVE is compelling: save time and resources while fostering meaningful, efficient communication that demonstrates genuine care for your bereaved contacts." — Andrew O’Connell, Director of Product at Maxwell TEC

By thoughtfully curating bereavement resources, creating targeted landing pages, and harnessing meaningful data insights, St. Croix Hospice quickly realized both program success and measurable ROI. At Maxwell TEC, we’re proud to support their ongoing journey as BEREAVE grows alongside their commitment to compassionate, patient-centered hospice bereavement care.

Discover More BEREAVE Resources

Hospice Bereavement: Compassion Meets Compliance
Blog
Supporting Families with Compassion While Meeting Hospice Bereavement Regulations
A Modern Approach to Bereavement Support. With insights from St. Croix Hospice.
On-Demand Webinar
A Modern Approach to Bereavement Support, featuring Insights from St. Croix Hospice
MHACorner_Podcast 23_THRIVE_MTEC
Podcast
Transforming Grief Support: A Success Story with St. Croix Hospice
See Why Agencies Like St. Croix Hospice Trust BEREAVE

 
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