Anonymous donor helps Grace House buy Highland Square’s Leonora Hall 
Signal Akron; Akron, OH; by Shams Mustafa; 8/17/26 
A new chapter is beginning for Highland Square’s Leonora Hall after a nonprofit organization, Grace House Akron, purchased the property with the unexpected help of an anonymous donor. ... The acquisition means the property has a new owner following the closure of the Francesca Residence and the displacement of its mostly elderly residents. In a statement, Grace House representative Jen Boroff said that the nonprofit, which provides end-of-life care and housing for people who are indigent, unsheltered or abandoned, sees potential for the site to strengthen its mission and serve the broader community but that the organization has not yet decided how it will use the property.

Strategic leadership and the future of corporate learning an in-depth analysis of modern workforce development trends 
Recruit-Talent.com | Employee Training & Development; 8/14/26
The landscape of corporate learning and development (L&D) is currently undergoing a fundamental transformation, shifting from a traditional "cost-center" model toward a core strategic function essential for organizational survival. In the latest installment of the Chief Learning Officer’s “Learning Insights” series, a high-level examination of this evolution reveals how visionary leaders are navigating the complexities of workforce development in an era defined by rapid technological advancement and shifting employee expectations. ... 
Essential Qualities of the Modern Learning Leader ... Key leadership traits identified by industry experts include:

• Strategic Alignment:...
• Deep Listening and Empathy: ...
• Simplification: ...
• Curiosity and Adaptability: ...

Editor's Note: What do the goals and outcomes of your clinical orientation and education systems reveal about what your organization values? Money over mission? Mission without attention to money? Assumptions that clinicians can immediately transition from curative to hospice and palliative care? Or intentional preparation for the human work of walking with dying, death, and grief—with dignity, compassion, and quality of care?

[Portugal] The ethical and psychosocial dimensions of palliative care in prison: A scoping review
Journal of Bioethical Inquiry; by Ana Gehl-Costa, P. Reis-Pina; 7/26
With prison populations expanding and aging, palliative care (PC) is an urgent concern. People in prison (PIP) face chronic illness, mental health conditions, and social vulnerabilities, creating ethical and psychosocial challenges to dignified end-of-life (EOL) care... Ethical domains included structural neglect of PIP with life-limiting illness, barriers to compassionate release, compromised autonomy, denial of death in prison culture, and inadequacies in care quality and access. Psychosocial domains encompassed stigma, mistrust, isolation, existential suffering, and fractured social bonds. PIP-led hospice models offered companionship but raised tensions around labour, confidentiality, and the normalization of death in custody... Prison-based PC requires systemic reforms, staff training, family and advocacy involvement, and legal safeguards to ensure equitable, compassionate, and dignified EOL care.
Publisher's note: This article was included in the August 2026 issue of End-of-Life Care Behind Bars - Current Thinking, by Barry R. Ashpole.

Honoring my daughter's final wishes 
Substack; by Larry Lehmer; 8/7/26 
I own one pink shirt. I wear it once a year, on Feb. 28, my daughter’s birthday. It’s mostly her idea. “Please wear more pink!” she wrote for her husband, Paul, to read at her celebration of life. “To the men — you can pull it off.” 
It’s been three years since Paul had to deliver Meghan’s final words, at the Des Moines Botanical Garden, the same place where they began their married life 13 years earlier. “I once read ‘Love doesn’t die, people do’,” Meghan wrote. “So when love is all that’s left of me, give me away.” 
Meghan died on Aug. 8, 2023. It still hurts, of course, but we continue to celebrate her life, her devotion to family and try to honor her dying wish “that we all help each other a little more.” 
Here’s what I wrote about her in August 2023: ...

Reports from Duke University describe recent advances in managed care (the South had the lowest rates of hospice and palliative medicine-certified providers in the US, 2024): managed care
Insurance Newsnet; by Staff; 8/13/26 
A new study on Managed Care is now available. According to news reporting originating in Durham, North Carolina, by NewsRx journalists, research stated, “To improve access to care for serious illness, policy makers need evidence on how workforce capacity aligns with the need for palliative care. This study evaluated the palliative care workforce and policy environments at the state level, using a new data source: the 2024 Center to Advance Palliative Care’s comprehensive Serious Illness Scorecard.” Funders for this research include US Department of Veterans Affairs, Duke University, US Department of Veterans Affairs, Durham Center of Innovation to Accelerate Discover and Practice Transformation (ADAPT) at the Durham Veterans Affairs Health Care System. Read the study here.

NPHI announces “Care You Can Trust” as 2026 National Hospice and Palliative Care Month theme 
National Partnership for Healthcare and Hospice Innovation (NPHI), Washington, DC; Press Release; 8/12/26 
The National Partnership for Healthcare and Hospice Innovation (NPHI) today announced “Care You Can Trust” as the national theme for Hospice and Palliative Care Month 2026, observed throughout November. This year’s campaign will focus on helping patients, families and communities better understand what high-quality hospice and palliative care looks like — and recognizing the dedicated professionals and organizations providing that care every day. At a time when stories of fraud and abuse within the hospice sector have received significant national attention, NPHI believes it is of paramount importance for the public to hear the stories of providers who are delivering care the right way: delivering compassionate, high-quality care, supporting families during some of life’s most difficult moments and serving as trusted and respected partners in their communities. ... To support the campaign, NPHI has launched a comprehensive 2026 Hospice and Palliative Care Month Campaign Hub, with ready-to-use resources for hospice, palliative care and other advanced illness care providers across the country.

The healthcare partnership nobody is talking about: hospice + FQHCs | part two
Teleios Collaborative Network (TCN); podcast hosted by Chris Comeaux with Kyle Ahlenstorf; 8/14/26 
What if one of the most promising partnerships in serious illness care has been hiding in plain sight? In Part Two of The Healthcare Partnership Nobody Is Talking About: Hospice + FQHCs, Chris Comeaux continues his conversation with Kyle Ahlenstorf about the largely untapped opportunity for hospice and palliative care organizations to collaborate with Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs).  The discussion explores how hospice and palliative care can extend an FQHC's reach into the home while FQHCs bring an established infrastructure of primary care, behavioral health, care coordination, community health workers, and preventive services.  Together, these capabilities could create a stronger continuum of care for patients with serious and chronic illness. 

Tuesday's Tools: Find evidence-based research in our Saturday issues
Hospice & Palliative Care Today; by Joy Berger; 8/17/26

Calling all readers to our new Tuesday’s Tools series. Each Tuesday, we’ll highlight a tool included with your free subscription to help you use our news to improve the care you provide.

This week’s tool: our Saturday issues.

Each Saturday, Hospice & Palliative Care Today slows the business pace of the workweek with in-depth, evidence-based research recently published in reputable professional journals. These articles are expertly curated by our Assistant Editor Cathy Wagner, RN, MSN, MBA, a former hospice CEO and nurse.

We are committed to equipping you with timely, reputable research that informs the challenges you face and helps strengthen best practices for patient and family care, staffing, and more.

Easy ways to use our Saturday research issues:

1. Your inbox: Look for your Saturday edition of Hospice & Palliative Care Today.
2. Search: Login to your newsletter account from our homepage and enter a keyword in the Search box. Results link you directly to the original sources.
3. Share with leaders and teams: Forward your email or an article's URL to specific leaders and teams, or use the LinkedIn share button on our webpage. 
4. Put research into practice: Compare findings with your clinical protocols, education, quality and compliance practices, and other internal systems.

Use these Saturday issues to stay current with emerging evidence, deepen conversations with your teams, and strengthen the care you provide. Identify what affirms your current practices—and what may need to change.

Treasure Coast Hospice launches new website to make hospice referrals easier for families and healthcare providers 
Cision PRWeb, Stuart, FL; by Treasure Coast Hospice; 8/11/26 
Treasure Coast Hospice has launched a newly redesigned website featuring an enhanced online referral experience that makes it easier for healthcare providers, patients, and families to connect with hospice care. The new website was developed to remove common barriers people may face when searching for hospice information and to make the referral process more accessible, efficient, and easy to understand. ... One of the most significant updates is a new online referral form with two distinct pathways: one for healthcare professionals and another for patients and loved ones.

My husband was kicked out of hospice for dying too slowly. Here's what I learned about navigating hospice care. 
CBS News; by Kim Clark; 8/13/26 
It was mid-January 2026, and my then-73-year-old husband, Mike Salmon, had just started bouncing back from a three-month ordeal of three operations related to aortic aneurysms, sepsis, and a terrifying descent into delirium tied to a stay in the intensive care unit. ... Abruptly, we were shunted onto hospice care — the dead-end spur of the American medical system. ... Mike joined that select group. His experience in and out of the hospice system revealed surprising lessons about how families can manage care. And getting removed from hospice revealed a little-known process that can represent a welcome respite for families like ours — but can be devastating for patients with serious chronic illnesses. Here's what we learned in our four months on and off hospice. ...  
Editor's Note: The initial descriptions and tone of this caregiver's experience raise significant red flags: ... "Choose one." A hospital nurse handed me a list of local hospice agencies. ... I just pointed to the name at the top of the alphabetical list, assuming they were pretty much the same. ... The problems with the organization I had chosen started immediately. ... Kristina Newport, chief medical officer of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, said I should also have checked the quality ratings on Medicare's Care Compare site and the National Hospice Locator. Those sites would have alerted me to our first agency's low ratings. [Disclosure: Hospice Analytics--the site for the National Hospice Locator and owned by 1520ai--is a sponsor for Hospice & Palliative Care Today.]

Hospice of Michigan receives more than $20k in donations following Josh & Jase visit 
ABC-13, Grand Rapids, MI; by Mary Dupuis; 8/14/26 
The viral social media duo Josh & Jase have helped raise more than $20,000 for Hospice of Michigan's statewide pediatric hospice program this summer. The fundraising campaign was launched in support of the Jo Elyn Nyman Pediatric Hospice Endowment Fund. ... Josh Cauldwell-Clarke and Jase Riley became famous on social media for their travel videos reacting to American food, culture and exciting experiences. ... During their time in Grand Rapids, Josh and Jase spent time with pediatric hospice patients and their families at Hospice of Michigan. After their social media post about the visit, more than 350 donations flooded in to Hospice of Michigan from across the country. 

‘Light Up a Life’: Rice County approves courthouse trees for Faribault Area Hospice initiative 
LeSeur County News, Faribault. MN; by Lauren Viska; 8/19/26 
For 40 years, Faribault Area Hospice has turned the glow of hundreds of white lights into a celebration of lives well lived. Each light on its traditional “Light Up a Life” tree represents a person remembered, honored and celebrated by those who loved them. Since 1985, Faribault Area Hospice has placed thousands of white lights on a memory tree, with individuals sponsoring a light in memory of someone special. Proceeds from the lights go directly toward helping hospice patients in the Faribault area who are experiencing financial hardship. ... Now, after more than four decades of the tradition, Hospice is looking to bring that familiar glow to a new set of evergreens.

The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it. ~Michelangelo