Literature Review

Hospice of Midland expands adult care programs and adds children's grief support Midland Reporter-Telegram; by Kessly Salinas; 7/13/26 Hospice of Midland announced it will expand its services this summer by growing two adult programs and introducing a program for children. “In response to community needs, we are enlarging two adult programs and introducing one for children,” said Deborah Goodman, CEO of Hospice of Midland. “The Pathways Palliative Care program, which supports patients with advanced illnesses, will be expanded,” Goodman said. ... The new program will be the Children’s Grief Center’s Holding Hope program. “Rays of Hope Children’s Grief Center has been here in Midland, serving the Permian Basin for 22 years,” Goodman said. “We’ve noticed, especially since COVID, a pretty substantial increase in deaths by suicide in younger individuals, especially the teen and young adult ages.” The Holding Hope program was designed for children and families affected by death by suicide.

[United Kingdom] Development of the ‘Culturally Informed Ecological Model of Grief’ – a national qualitative study of bereavement experiences among ethnically diverse communities BMC Medicine; by Catriona R Mayland, Emily Fisher, Adejoke O Oluyase, Nikel-Shaniece Hector-Jack, Toslima Khatun, Rukia Saleem, Naureen Khan, Shirin Shahid, Riffat Mahmood, Gurpreet Grewal-Santini, Monika Afolabi, Candice Wang, Sarah Ng, Rashmi Kumar, Katherine Bristowe, Emily Harrop, Zoebia Islam, Jonathan Koffman, Gurch Randhawa, Lucy E Selman & Sabrina Bajwah; 7/14/26  Background: Among people from ethnically diverse communities, evidence regarding bereavement experiences and support needs is limited; there are known inequities in access to formal bereavement support. Conclusions: Racism was evident across multiple settings and closely intertwined with bereavement, compounding the emotional burden of grief. This study represents the largest qualitative investigation of bereavement among ethnically diverse communities in UK healthcare to date, providing a robust evidence base for improving equity in support. Bereavement services must prioritise cultural safety and actively address structural racism. The ‘Culturally Informed Ecological Model of Grief’ offers a new framework guiding more equitable bereavement support, relevant across national and international contexts.

California adopts sweeping emergency regulations for hospice providers: what the new rules require and how to prepare JD Supra; by Epstein Becker & Green; 7/13/26 On June 22, 2026, emergency regulations promulgated by the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) and codified at Title 22, California Code of Regulations, sections 74800 through 74908, took effect. The emergency regulations establish detailed licensing, operational, staffing, and governance standards for hospice agencies. This new regulatory framework applies immediately to both existing hospice licensees and applicants for initial licensure. Although the emergency regulations are temporary, CDPH has indicated that it intends to make them permanent.

The corporatization of medicine, in salaries and beds MedPageToday's KevinMD.com; by Brian Hudes, MD; 7/11/26 In the 1970s, the American hospital was, in the industry’s own language, an “open workshop.” ... The doctor made the medical decisions; the administrator kept the lights on and the ledgers balanced. It was an arrangement with obvious flaws (fragmentation, duplication, uneven quality), but it rested on a clear premise: Medicine was practiced by physicians, and the institution existed to support that practice. That premise has quietly inverted. ... It is a corporation that employs them. The practice down the street has been acquired, rebranded, and folded into a system with a marketing department, a real-estate strategy, and a chief executive whose compensation would have been unimaginable to the physicians of the open-workshop era. The people who now set the direction of American medicine are, increasingly, not the people who see patients.

Community gathers to strike out cancer and honor loved ones during awareness event WUFT | PBS/NPR, Gainesville, FL; by Curan Ahern; 7/12/26 Just over one year ago, Corey Williams received the news everyone dreads: a loved one being diagnosed with cancer. A local artist, poet, videographer and father of four, Williams found out in May 2025 his fiancée, Iya Burkett, had cancer. Within a month, Williams saw the disease rapidly progress. ... Williams faced one of the worst realities a man can experience: Burkett died, and he was not prepared. ... Williams also lost his mother to cancer three years prior, leaving him to face the world without the two most important women in his life. After wrestling with the losses, he planned community events to commemorate his loved ones, raise awareness and start uncomfortable conversations about preparedness — conversations that often need to be had but are avoided. ... Along with friends and family, members of Haven Hospice’s bereavement program, Healing Hearts, showed up to support Williams and his family. Burkett worked for Haven Hospice for 13 years, and the organization helped Williams transition into life without his fiancée. 

Lessons from 70 triathlons about why enterprise software projects fail Forbes; by Alan Rencher for Forbes Technology Council; 7/13/26 ​In 2004, I weighed 280 pounds. ... I am not proud of how I got there. But I am genuinely grateful for what getting out of it taught me, not just about endurance training, but about the thing I have spent my career trying to get right: why enterprise software almost always fails. I have now completed 70-plus triathlons. I also have a long list of painful firsthand experiences with enterprise software that launched expensively and landed quietly in a drawer. Building it, selling it, buying it, implementing it. I have been on every side of that table. The failure modes are the same. And the reason is not what most people think.​ ...

Home health advocates accuse CMS of overreach on fraud-fighting measures McKnights Home Care; by Liza Berger; 7/10/26 While there has been much focus so far on the continuing behavioral adjustments in the recent home health proposed rule, there is another aspect of the rule that has drawn providers’ scorn — the harsh fraud measures. “The rule proposes significant expanded authority for CMS to deny or revoke Medicare enrollment,” Jennifer Sheets, CEO of the National Alliance for Care at Home, said during a webinar hosted by the Polsinelli law firm Thursday. “These enrollment provisions are a particular concern for us.” Sheets pointed out to a provision in the program integrity proposals that would expand the reapplication bar — prohibiting a provider from re-enrolling for up to 10 years — for any enrollment denial reason. “This really concerns us,” she said. “We think it is overreach from CMS, and that 10-year bar is a pretty scary thing to be looking at.”

CMS proposes significant changes to Medicare Provider Enrollment Mondaq | Legal500 | Intelligence; by Mary Beth Fortugno, Travis Lloyd, Julia Tamulis; 7/8/26On July 6, 2026, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) published a proposed rule that would significantly expand CMS’s authority to revoke and deny Medicare enrollment and broaden disclosure obligations. Among the most significant proposals, CMS would:

Relationships between advance care planning engagement, patients’ religious practices, and spirituality American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Medicine; by Robyn M. Axel-Adams, MS, MDiv, BCC, HEC-C, Emily Fox Ludden, MDiv, MGS, and Alexia M. Torke, MD; 7/2/26Background: Research has shown that people who consider themselves religious have a lower advance directive (AD) completion rate. However, advance care planning (ACP) includes a broader range of activities that are important in determining medical treatments. ... Conclusions: In contrast to prior findings of lower AD completion in more religious individuals, this study found that higher religiosity and spirituality are associated with higher ACP engagement. These results suggest ACP opportunities offered for religious congregations or spirituality focused communities may be especially successful.

CMS proposed rule: understanding palliative care in home health Hospice News; by Jim Parker; 7/10/26 While recent actions by the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) could incrementally move the needle on palliative care access, they could also come with many limitations. CMS in its proposed 2027 home health rule clarified that home health providers can use certain billing codes to provide community-based palliative care to eligible patients. The agency emphasized that this palliative care would be distinct from hospice. Stakeholders in the hospice community were quick to applaud the proposal. ... However, what CMS has done falls short of a community-based palliative care benefit. For one, patients must meet the eligibility requirements for home health. This means that, among other requirements, patients must be homebound to receive this care, according to Katy Barnett, director of hospice and home health operations and policy for LeadingAge. This excludes many patients who may benefit from palliative care.

US lawmakers urge stricter monitoring of medically assisted suicide in hospices The Guardian | US healthcare; by Coral Murphy Marcos; 7/9/26 Lawmakers urged the health and human services (HHS) secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, on Thursday to establish strict hospice reporting rules to prevent discrimination and coercion in medically assisted suicide. The bipartisan group of members of Congress warned that older adults, people with disabilities, or those with disaffected caregivers face a particular risk of being pressured to end their lives. “Every person has inherent worth and dignity, including those facing their final days,” said the Republican senator James Lankford in a statement. ... Lankford, as well as the Democratic senator Tim Kaine, Republican representative Greg Murphy and Jose Luis Correa, a Democratic representative, signed a joint letter asking HHS and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to monitor the practice.

Arden Home Health and Hospice celebrates Grand Opening of Vicksburg branch Vicksburg Daily News (VDN), Vicksburg, MS; Press Release; 7/10/26 Arden Home Health and Hospice held a ribbon-cutting and open house to mark the grand opening of its new Vicksburg hospice branch at 1650 US 61, Suite D. The new branch expands Arden’s established home health presence in Vicksburg, adding hospice services for patients and families in Claiborne, Jefferson, Warren, Yazoo, Holmes, Humphreys, Sharkey, and Issaquena counties. ... Prior to this expansion, families in these communities were forced to travel significant distances for advanced hospice care.

A new way to prepare doctors for difficult conversations University of Rochester; by Bob Marcotte; 7/10/26 [This post was originally published on July 15, 2021. It has been updated and republished to include a video about using SOPHIE for dentist-patient communication training.] As many as 68 percent of late-stage cancer patients leave their doctor’s offices either underestimating the severity of their disease, overestimating their life expectancy—or both. These misunderstandings can hinder the ability of patients and their families to make realistic decisions about whether to continue aggressive treatments or instead turn to palliative care. To address the problem, University of Rochester computer scientists, palliative care specialists, and practicing oncologists are perfecting SOPHIE (Standardized Online Patient for Healthcare Interaction Education)—an online virtual “patient” that helps physicians practice how to communicate effectively with late-stage cancer patients about their disease.