Hospice care provider and compassion fatigue research project
Personal communication; by Michelle Jackson; 6/10/26
Researchers at Missouri State University are conducting a research survey regarding compassion fatigue, resilience, and participation in meaningful activities for hospice care providers. This online survey is expected to take 15-20 minutes and has a participation deadline of 7/12/26. For additional information and to participate, click here.

Nurse perceptions of end-of-life care quality across long-term care, home, and social model hospice home settings: A qualitative descriptive study
American Journal of Hospice & Palliative Care; by Helen Mavis Farrar, Kelley Easterling Scott; 5/26
This qualitative descriptive study explored nursing perspectives on end-of-life care quality across 3 distinct community settings: long-term care facilities, patients' homes, and social model hospice homes. Nurses provide most of the direct end-of-life care in these settings, yet their perspectives remain understudied. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 11 licensed nurses who had provided end-of-life care across all 3 settings. Analysis revealed 4 major themes: (1) setting-based care disparities, (2) nurses as educators and translators, (3) mediation of caregiver burden across settings, and (4) relationship-based care as foundational for peaceful deaths. Care setting profoundly influenced these nurses' ability to deliver quality end-of-life care. 
Assistant Editor's note: a social model hospice home is a community-based, non-medical facility that provides care to residents in a home-like setting. A board and care home is an example of this. 

“Nobody told us”: Inequities in end-of-life dementia care
Journal of Pain & Symptom Management; by Krista L. Harrison, Lingsheng Li, Jasmine Santoyo-Olsson, Niousha Moini, Lauren J. Hunt, Rebecca L. Sudore, Alex Smith; 6/26
In the United States, one in three older adults dies with or from dementia. Despite increasing hospice enrollment, minoritized racial, ethnic, and LGBTQ communities face persistent inequities in access to timely, high-quality end-of-life care. We recruited bereaved caregivers of decedents with dementia from communities that experience health disparities. Just over half of the participants rated end-of-life care middling-to-bad. Reasons cited for receiving poorer care than others were age (40%), race, ethnicity, or nationality (36%), disability (20%), and weight (8%). End-of-life communication challenges reported by participants were often based in systemic racism and structural oppression, including: problems accessing language-concordant education and clinicians, missed opportunities for anticipatory guidance due to cultural biases or lack of access to healthcare, difficulty finding clinicians skilled in sensitive and tailored communication, inconsistent hospice admission criteria, and understaffed hospices.

Pediatric home-based hospice and palliative care: A scoping review
BMC Palliative Care; by Ellen Davis, Daniel H Grossoehme, Toluwalase Ajayi, Justin N Baker, Pamela S Hinds, Lisa Humphrey, Jill Ann Jarrell, Rachel Thienprayoon, Sarah Friebert; 5/26
Pediatric palliative and/or hospice care is provided across a broad spectrum of settings, ranging from inpatient to outpatient to a child's home. Pediatric home-based hospice and/or palliative care teams offer a specialized, interdisciplinary approach to care, allowing children to stay in the home while offering comprehensive support. Common themes emerged [in this review] including studies analyzing models of care, characterizing the population, end-of-life decision making, clinical outcomes of home-based hospice and/or palliative care, costs and economic impact, family experiences, quality domains, specific treatment modalities, and the use of telehealth. Overall, the available literature supported home-based hospice and/or palliative care as an effective model of care, reducing the burden on families, improving quality of life, and allowing families to stay in their preferred setting for care without sacrificing clinical outcomes.

Palliative care or hospice? Flipping the classroom for 1st year pre-clinical medical students with interactive online content
American Journal of Hospice & Palliative Care; by Maxwell Vergo, Charles Wang, Lawrence Myers; 5/26
Although palliative care competencies appear on USMLE [United States Medical Licensing Examination] examinations, pre-clinical curricula devote minimal time to end-of-life education. We created a 30-minute interactive online module in Articulate 360™ for first year students covering palliative care definitions, eligibility criteria, and care settings. In-class time was restructured to small group case discussions distinguishing primary palliative care, specialty palliative care, and hospice. Correct responses on a palliative care examination question improved from 57% (2020-2021, virtual lecture) to 66%, 67%, and 80% in subsequent years with the flipped intervention. The pre-work engaged students in learning (79-89% agreement), enabled focus on advanced topics during class (73-77% agreement), and was described as interactive and helpful in teacher evaluations.

Clinical Artificial Intelligence as a novice nurse: Leadership responsibilities for safe implementation
Nurse Leader; by Asiah Ruffin; 5/26
Clinical artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are increasingly integrated into health care environments, influencing clinical workflows, documentation, decision-making, and patient communication. While AI is often introduced as a technical innovation, its implementation presents significant leadership responsibilities related to safety, workforce readiness, and organizational oversight. This commentary proposes an analogy that conceptualizes clinical AI systems as novice nurses—entities that require structured orientation, supervision, feedback, and ongoing development rather than autonomous trust. Using this analogy, the article examines risks associated with premature reliance on AI, including workflow disruption, performance variability over time, and limited user understanding of system capabilities and limitations. The commentary also outlines practical leadership considerations, including investing in workforce education, collaborating with human factors experts, establishing governance processes, and engaging in policy advocacy.

1947-1956: 250 Years - A History of Care
Hospice & Palliative Care Today; by Joy Berger; for 6/27/26
Read details and explore source links

• Hill–Burton Act and “Separate but Equal” Hospitals (1946–early 1950s)
  
  
• Cicely Saunders, David Tasma, and the Window that Opened Modern Hospice (London, 1948)
  
  
• From Home Death to Hospital Death (early–mid 1950s)

Be the change that you wish to see in the world.  ~ Mahatma Gandhi