New easy-to-use web edition: A history of care - 250 years of American need, service and hope 
Composing Life Out of Loss, partnered with Hospice & Palliative Care Today; by Joy S. Berger; 7/20/26 
Growing out of readers' overwhelming response to our July 4th, 2026 commemoration, we’re releasing a new web edition of A History of Care: 250 Years of American Need, Service and Hope to carry this work forward. Use this living history—in your own setting and across our field—as we write the next chapters of care together. You and your teams can enter the story wherever it meets your work today:

• Table of Contents
• Prelude
• 1776–1866: Founding and Fracture
• 1867–1936: Industrial America and Reform
• 1937–1976: War, Rights, and Hospice Origins
• 1977–2006: Hospice and Palliative Care Take Shape
• 2007–2026: Trauma, Equity, and Moral Distress
• Coda – Composing the Next Movement of Care
• Key Sources

Share these links with your executive team, key leaders and colleagues in other organizations, and let it spark questions about integrity, access, workforce, and what your organization will add to this larger story. To explore using A History of Care in your leadership, education, or conference teaching, learn more here or contact me directly.

Leadership starts with presence — the art of showing up with David Sachsenmaier | part two 
Teleios Collaborative Network (TCN); podcast hosted by Chris Comeaux with David Sachsenmaier; 7/17/26 
The greatest leadership challenge isn't managing others—it's mastering yourself. In Part Two of Leadership Starts With Presence: The Art of Showing Up, host Chris Comeaux continues his powerful conversation with executive leadership coach David Sachsenmaier, exploring why every leader's inner world inevitably shapes their organization's culture. Together, they unpack how unresolved fears, reactivity, and unconscious behaviors ripple through teams, influencing trust, psychological safety, decision-making, and ultimately organizational performance.  Rather than focusing solely on leadership tactics, this episode challenges leaders to examine the deeper work that creates lasting influence.

Thrifts & Gifts volunteer supports local hospice provider 
Focus Newspaper | The Associated Press, valdese, NC; 7/15/26 
Dianne Compton has volunteered with AMOREM’s Thrifts & Gifts store for nearly a year, but she’s been supporting hospice care much longer than that. Over the past 25+ years, Compton has supported the hospice organizations in her local community. As a restaurant owner in Rutherfordton, she would provide a special treat to hospice patients on their birthday. Later, after the death of her mother in hospice care, she managed the thrift store that supported the hospice organization there. She also served as a volunteer. ... Her favorite things to do at Thrifts & Gifts are making floral arrangements, working in the shoes and clearing off the back dock. Knowing her time at Thrifts & Gifts directly supports AMOREM’s mission is very rewarding. ... 

Mount Sinai South Nassau partners with MJHS to launch inpatient hospice program 
LI Herald Oceanside, Island Park, NY; by Abigail Grieco; 7/17/26 
Mount Sinai South Nassau has expanded its continuum of care services by launching an inpatient hospice program through a new clinical partnership with MJHS Hospice and Palliative Care, providing specialized end-of-life care for patients whose needs cannot be met at home. The hospital announced that the new service will offer around-the-clock hospice care for patients facing life-limiting illnesses, while also providing support for their families during one of life’s most difficult transitions. ... The program combines the expertise of Mount Sinai South Nassau's clinical staff with MJHS Hospice's specialized team of hospice professionals.

Personal experience fuels Jeannie Meyer's commitment to helping the homeless die with dignity 
UCLA Health; by Sandy Cohen; 7/15/26  
The UCLA Health palliative care nurse is a national advocate for recording end-of-life wishes for unhoused individuals. Jeannie Meyer, MSN, didn’t realize she was homeless as a child. She thought everyone moved from place to place, hotel to hotel, and never answered the phone or the door in case a bill collector was on the other side. “I knew what ‘eviction notice’ meant when I was 5 years old,” she says. Those childhood experiences made her empathetic, but it was the pain of learning that her alcoholic father died on Skid Row that inspired Meyer, a palliative care nurse at UCLA Health, to advocate for advance care planning for homeless people.

An updated analysis of serious health-related suffering from 2021 to 2023 
Journal of Pain and Symptom Management; by Afsan Bhadelia, Xiaoxiao Jiang Kwete, Tania Pastrana, Héctor Arreola-Ornelas, Jinfeng Ding, Oscar Méndez-Carniado, Lukas Radbruch, William E Rosa, Hongliang Tao, Valentina Vargas Enciso, Felicia Marie Knaul; 7/15/26 
Results: Between 2021 and 2023, global serious health-related suffering (SHS) grew by 3.9% - outpacing population growth (1.8%) - driven by sharp increases in upper-middle-income countries (UMICs) (5.5%) and high-income countries (HICs) (5.2%) and notable condition-specific increases in SHS associated with lung disease (18.2%), inflammatory disease of the central nervous system (11.4%), and dementia (7.9%). Moreover, increases in SHS due to cancer were particularly stark in LICs (17.8%), while injuries markedly rose in HICs (15.9%).

‘Grief is a beast': Interventional care, palliative care. It's time to consider bereavement care 
Merced Sun-Star; by Darcel Rockett, Chicago Tribune; 7/17/26 
The tattoo on Amari Mead's inner left arm demands attention. Mead calls it her Butterfly Garden. The artwork includes the footprints of Kaiden Amir Tappler ... Kaiden Amir's footprints forever rest where he usually slept in Mead's arms. It was there, as the two slept in the bed in Mead's Auburn Gresham apartment, that he passed away. Kaiden Amir came into the world April 15, 2023, and departed fewer than three months later.

Restaurant owner shelves Easter plans to fulfill dying man's last wish to feed his hospice nurses 
Daily Good; by Good News Network; 4/7/26 
Frank Ozimek spent his final days in hospice care, but what occupied his mind wasn't his own suffering -- it was how to thank the nurses who had tended to him with such devotion. When his brother Ken struggled to find a restaurant open on Easter to fulfill Frank's wish to feed the hospice staff, Tommy Milani, owner of a local pizza shop, didn't hesitate: "Absolutely, whatever you need, Ken." Milani set aside his holiday plans and delivered pizzas to the entire nursing staff, completing a circle of care that began with strangers and ended with gratitude. In his last act, Frank found a way to say what perhaps mattered most -- that he had seen the kindness given to him, and wanted to give it back.  

California physician arrested in $3.2m hospice fraud scheme 
Hospice News; by Holly Vossel; 7/17/26 
A California-based physician was recently arrested after pleading guilty to charges of healthcare fraud. Dr. Sanjoy Banerjee, was a medical director for Fountain Hospice, based in Los Angeles. Two other medical directors at the hospice, Luis Artavia and Mark Samonte, also face charges for their alleged involvement in a fraud scheme that bilked more than $3.2 million in Medicare and Medi-Cal funds. The case centers around violations of false or fraudulent claims and conspiracy to commit a crime, with an aggravated white-collar enhancement.

MedPAC releases 2026 Medicare Data Book 
MedPAC - Advising the Congress on Medicare Issues; 7/16/26 
The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) released its 2026 data book on health care spending and the Medicare program. The publication provides data on Medicare spending, demographics of the Medicare population, beneficiaries' access to care, and quality of care in the program, among other information. You may go to the data book page on our website (www.medpac.gov) to view the data book and Excel data files.

Empath Health Mobile Simulation RV gives summer camp students hands-on look at healthcare careers 
Pasco Hernando State College (PHSC); Press Release; 7/16/26 
Today, Empath Health Clinical Specialist, MJ Schwartz, Workforce Innovation & Academic Partnerships brought their Mobile Simulation Unit to Pasco-Hernando State College’s Porter Campus at Wiregrass Ranch Health Care Discovery Summer Camp on Thursday, July 16, giving middle and high school students a hands-on introduction to health  care careers through interactive clinical simulations and team-based problem solving. The 31-foot Mobile Simulation RV hosted 28 campers, ages 11 to 18, who rotated through the unit in small groups. Students explored health care training equipment, learned basic patient care concepts and participated in a medical “escape room”-style activity designed to build critical thinking and collaboration skills while introducing real-world healthcare scenarios.

You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was. ~ Abraham Lincoln