Alliance 2025 Facts and Figures Report now available 
The National Alliance for Care at Home; Alexandria, VA and Washington, DC; Press Release; 3/3/26 
The National Alliance for Care at Home (the Alliance) published the 2025 edition of Facts and Figures, an annual report on key data points related to the delivery of hospice care, including information on patient characteristics, location and level of care, Medicare hospice spending, hospice provider characteristics, and quality of care. Facts and Figures – the leading resource for hospice providers and others interested in understanding the work of the community – has been published annually for over two decades. The findings in this report reflect patients who received care in 2024, provided by hospices certified by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and reimbursed under the Medicare Hospice Benefit. ... The full 2025 Facts and Figures report is available for Alliance members online. The Executive Summary is available to the public.  
Editor's Note: Pair this national data with the The Alliance and the Research Institute for Home Care release 2025 Hospice Chartbook that we posted on 2/20/26. The RIHC Hospice Chartbook mainly provides state views with some national treands, whereas this Facts and Figures report is mainly a national view with time trends.

LA’s shameful hospice fraud crisis laid bare — and the tens of millions of your cash going down the drain
NY Post; by Benjamin Brown; 3/1/26
A network of hundreds of hospices are under investigation for allegedly ripping tens of millions of dollars from taxpayers in Los Angeles Country and across California. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is now actively cutting off payments to suspicious operations across Los Angeles, which is home to almost half of America’s end-of-life care providers.
Notable mentions include: Dr. Mehmet Oz, Dr. Ira Byock, and Sheila Clark.

UVM Home Health & Hospice volunteers among the longest serving in the nation 
Vermont Business Magazine | The University of Vermont Health Network - Home Health & Hospice; by Tim; 3/3/26 
Among the longest‑serving hospice volunteers in the nation, Charlotte Kenney, Jan Watt and Lil Venner have each devoted more than 45 years to UVM Health – Home Health & Hospice because, they say, helping patients and their families make the most of the time they have left of this earth is a privilege, rooted in grace and connection. The notion that hospice work is defined by sorrow, is rejected by all three dedicated volunteers. "What I'm doing is enabling this person to live fully until the very last second," says Kenney. ... Venner adds, "You see the world differently when you're looking through the eyes of somebody who may be seeing this particular thing for the last time." 
Editor's Note: We celebrate these devoted hospice volunteers at UVM Health Network – Home Health & Hospice. Together, Charlotte Kenney, Jan Watt, and Lil Venner have given more than 185 years of service—an extraordinary testament to presence, compassion, and steadfast commitment. Who among your volunteers carries a stories of faithful service? What collective years of care live within your own program? Consider gathering and sharing that data—not simply as numbers, but as narratives of impact and catalysts for thanks.

Duxbury, Norwell groups have rebranded. Why the name changes? 
The Patriot Ledger, Su Cheible; 3/3/26 
I recently learned that the former Norwell Visiting Nurse Association (NVNA) and Hospice had in December taken a new name, Croí Health. Croí is an Irish word for heart, chosen to reflect the agency's patient-centered mission. I also noticed that the Duxbury Senior Center is now called The Center, has a tag line: "Live Well. Age Strong." It also notes that it is "still powered by the Duxbury Council on Aging." Its newsletter has a stylish new design and name, The Current, replacing the former name Duxbury Doings. ... Why senior centers are changing their names: In their names and their branding, the centers are switching to what they see as more active, more inclusive and more modern ideas. It is described as part of being age friendly, attracting younger seniors and moving away from negative associations and stigma still attached to growing older.

Palliative care physician explains living and dying with ALS 
Forbes; by Adaira Landry, MD, MEd; 2/26/26 
Actor Eric Dane’s recent death from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) has drawn national attention. ... Beyond the headlines lies a deeper and more urgent discussion: what life—and death—look like for patients living with ALS. To better understand both the clinical and scientific landscape, I spoke with Dr. Maria “Marissa” Mapa, an internal medicine and palliative care physician who treats patients with ALS, and Dr. Melanie Leitner, chief scientific officer of the ALS Investment Fund, about current and future research directions.

• What Happens to The Body During ALS? ...
• What ALS Looks Like at Home for Patients? ...
• Supporting ALS Patients through Death ...
• The Financial Toll of ALS ...

Editor's Note: For non-clinical leaders, understanding ALS is essential to meaningfully support the interdisciplinary teams caring for these patients and families. A simple distinction:

• With “A-L-Z” (Alzheimer’s disease; www.alz.org), cognitive function declines while the body may remain physically strong for much of the illness.
• With “A-L-S” (www.als.org, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease), cognitive function often remains largely intact while progressive muscle weakness leads to paralysis.

These disease paths unfold in profoundly different ways. Patient safety and quality of life, caregiver demands, communication planning, equipment needs, ethical considerations, and hospice and palliative interdisciplinary approaches require thoughtful differentiation. When leaders recognize these distinctions, teams are better supported—and families experience more responsive, compassionate care.

Themed digest for palliative care professionals: Spiritual support for children 
ehospice | PACED; February 2026 
Spiritual support remains one of the most complex and, at the same time, most essential elements of palliative care. In the February PACED digest, we present articles exploring the integration of spiritual care into nursing practice, families’ experiences in paediatric palliative care, and the role of professionals in discussing end-of-life issues with children and adolescents. This issue includes materials on professional competencies, system-level recommendations, and parents’ lived experiences. Together, they offer insight into how spiritual and value-based questions shape clinical practice and influence the quality of support provided to families. ...

• Integrating Spiritual Support into Nursing Practice ...
• Psychosocial Support Guidelines for Children and Their Families: The Dutch Experience ...
• The Spiritual Context of Families in Paediatric Palliative Care: A Qualitative Study ...
• How to Discuss Death with Children with Intellectual Disabilities: Perspectives from Paediatric Palliative Care Professionals ...
• Spirituality in Bereavement: How Parents Make Sense of Their Child’s Death ...

Why time becomes ever more precious towards the end of our days 
ehospice; by Brian Dolan, OBE; 3/2/26 
In health care, conversations about finance, workforce, and facilities often dominate the agenda. Yet, the most valuable and universal currency within our health systems is something less tangible but far more immediate: time. ... Time is the thread that connects patients and staff, shaping experiences, outcomes, and well-being. For patients, time is deeply personal. It is the time that comes dripping slow as hours are spent waiting in emergency departments, days of confinement to a hospital bed, and, ultimately, the quality of the life they return to when they are finally discharged. For staff, time determines how effectively they can deliver care, make decisions, and balance the demands of an increasingly pressured system. 

Outpatient curricular content for hospice and palliative medicine trainees: A national survey 
Journal of Pain and Symptom Management; by Harry J Han, Angelika Golebiowska, Emily N Hansen, Michelle Park, Victoria I Sweetnam, Christian T Sinclair, Jonathan C Yeh, Mary K Buss; 3/2/26, online ahead of print 
Context: More health systems are establishing outpatient palliative care (PC) programs, increasing demand for ambulatory PC clinicians. ... Little is known about the outpatient-specific knowledge and skills PC trainees should acquire for competent outpatient practice.
Conclusion: This national survey identified foundational outpatient-focused educational topics for hospice and pallitive medical (HPM) learners and suggests that outpatient curricula prioritize deliberate education on the unique application of core PC skills in outpatient settings. This prioritized list provides education leaders a roadmap to enhance existing curricula and informs the development of outpatient educational resources that can be shared across institutions.

Responsive emergency assessment and community team: an acute palliative medicine virtual ward with emergency department in-reach 
BMJ Supportive & Palliative Care; by Emily Holdsworth and Clare Rayment; 3/2/26 
Objectives: More than 50% of people who die in England and Wales use an ambulance at least once in their last 3 months of life, and around 50% attend the emergency department (ED). In Bradford, an estimated 1000 patients a year are not recognised as being within the last year of life and do not access palliative care services. ...
Methods: We created the Responsive Emergency Assessment and Community Team (REACT), comprised of both ED palliative medicine in-reach and a community virtual ward. The virtual ward accepts patients as ‘step-down’ from the hospital and ‘step-up’ from primary care to avoid hospital admissions through intensive holistic support.

Staying in Grand: Experts highlight unique challenges facing older adults in mountain towns 
Sky-Hi News; by Kyle McCabe and Izzy Wagner; 2/27/26 
... As people age in rural resort communities like those in Grand and Summit counties, they often face situations that require them to leave for short or extended periods of time —  sometimes even permanently. A lack of comprehensive medical services, high costs of living, the effects of high altitude on the body, the inherent risks of an active mountain lifestyle and more add complications for people hoping to age in place in mountain towns. However, individuals determined to remain in their communities have figured out ways to overcome those challenges by learning about, preparing for and engaging with the topic of aging. ... Smiley [person interviewed] pointed to hospice and palliative care, or care for people living with serious illnesses, as gaps in service in the area. “It is not an uncommon gap in a small community or in a mountain community,” Smiley said, “but having hospice and palliative care would really allow people to have, kind of, a higher quality of life during those last, final years.”

How compliance technology can improve day-to-day operations 
BusinessABC; by Peyman Khosravani; 2/25/26 
... Compliance technology, compliance software, or regtech, is the use of software and technology to help companies adhere to regulatory, legal, and internal requirements, and the automation of monitoring, reporting, and auditing of compliance. ...

12 Proven Strategies to Advance Compliance (H2): ...

1. Automate Data Collection: ...
2. Deploy AI for Pattern Detection: ...
3. Centralize Policy Management: ...
4. Set Up Real-Time Alerts: ...
5. Integrate Blockchain for Records: ...
6. [More ...]

How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment to improve the world. ~ Anne Frank