Literature Review

Texas flooding update from TNMHPOPersonal communication; by Brandie Baker; 7/25/25Texas New Mexico Hospice & Palliative Care Organization is continuing to keep a pulse about flood recovery efforts across the Texas Hill Country from the July 4th floods, and the needs remain great. The best way to help is by donating to the Kerr County Flood Relief Fund, which is still the most effective way to directly support those impacted. Every contribution makes a difference. Thank you, Brandie Baker, CAE, Executive Director

Negotiations move forward as Essentia delays return of striking workers Minnesota Nurses Association, Duluth, MN; Press Release; 7/25/25 On Tuesday [7/22], clinic nurses, surgery center nurses, healthcare workers at Solvay Hospice House, and Advanced Practice Providers (APPs) with the Minnesota Nurses Association (MNA) concluded a powerful strike across Essentia Health facilities that involved nearly 700 frontline workers. The two-week strike by nurses and healthcare workers and 13-day strike by APPs brought statewide attention to Essentia’s unfair labor practices, including unlawful intimidation, surveillance, and clear attempts to bust the union. Yet, even after the strike’s end, Essentia is continuing to keep on travel nurses, when former striking healthcare workers are available and want to return to work. 

Filling the gaps with the loss of Wilshire Health and Community Services NBC KSBY-6, California's Central Coast; by Dylan Foreman; 7/22/25 At the end of June, the longtime medical service provider Wilshire Health and Community Services, which offered everything from hospice and home health care to community services like counseling and transportation, closed its doors, leaving clients looking for help elsewhere. ... [Services] like home health and hospice care are being transferred over to organizations like Dignity Health Home Health and Hospice Care, getting 50% of the patients from Wilshire and sending offers out to 30% of their staff. According to Wilshire, on any given day, they could have at least 250 clients.

Medicare telehealth trends: Information on telehealth use by Medicare Fee-for-Service beneficiaries Data.CMS.gov; Centers for Medicaree & Medicaid Services; 7/16/25 Data update frequency: QuarterlyLatest data available: Q4 2025The Medicare Telehealth Trends dataset provides information about people with Medicare who used telehealth services between January 1, 2020 and December 31, 2024. The data were used to generate the Medicare Telehealth Trends Report.

[Canada] Electronic decision support for deprescribing in older adults living in long-term care-A stepped-wedge cluster randomized trialJAMA Network Open; by Emily G. McDonald, Justine L. Estey, Cody Davenport, Émilie Bortolussi-Courval, Jeffrey Gaudet, Pierre Philippe Wilson Registe, Todd C. Lee, Carole Goodine; 5/25Potentially inappropriate prescribing (PIP) occurs when medications that carry a higher risk of harm than benefit are prescribed. It occurs more often among older adults in the setting of polypharmacy (taking multiple medications) and is costly and harmful. PIP and potentially inappropriate medications (PIMs) contribute to excess adverse drug events, such as falls, fractures, cognitive decline, hospitalization, and death [and] the problem is more pronounced for older adults living in nursing homes (long-term care [LTC] homes). Depending on the screening criteria used, in some studies, the prevalence ranges from 67.8% to 87.7% of nursing home residents. Electronically generated, individualized reports that contained prioritized opportunities for deprescribing in older adults were paired with preexisting quarterly medication reviews [and] this study found that electronic decision support paired with the usual workflow could render the deprescribing process scalable and effective.

Death anxiety: Dani Chammas & Keri BrennerGeriPal podcast; by Eric Widera, Alex Smith, Dani Chammas, Keri Brenner; 7/17/25What is death anxiety? We spend the first 15 minutes of the podcast addressing this question. And maybe this was unfair to our guests, the fabulous dynamic duo of palliative psychiatrists Dani Chammas and Keri Brenner (listen to their prior podcasts on therapeutic presence and the angry patient). After all, we invited them on to our podcast to discuss death anxiety, then Eric and I immediately questioned if death anxiety was the best term for what we want to discuss!

Hospice of the Piedmont CEO: Doubling down on community-based support Hospice News; by Holly Vossel; 7/16/25 Virginia-based Hospice of the Piedmont is sharpening its focus on home-based care services and unfurling several initiatives in this realm. The future of end-of-life care delivery has increasingly shifted into the home, according to Nancy Littlefield, president and CEO at Hospice of the Piedmont. While demand for facility-based hospice care is also rising, sustaining these services has become increasingly difficult, she indicated. Several hospices have shuttered their facility-based programs in recent years, with many citing financial headwinds as a leading reason fueling inpatient center closures. Financial strains were among the challenges that led to the difficult decision to close Hospice of the Piedmont’s Center for Acute Hospice Care, Littlefield said. ... Hospice News recently sat down with Littlefield to learn more about how hospices are sustaining and growing their services in today’s economic and financial climate.

Online reputation management crucial for hospices, home-based care providers Hospice News; by Joyce Famakinwa; 7/18/25 Hospice and home-based care providers cannot put online reputation management on the back burner. That’s a key takeaway from a recent report from Transcend Strategy Group. While all businesses should be concerned about maintaining a good online reputation, this is especially important for home-based hospice care providers due to their unique care delivery setting, according to Tony Kudner, chief strategy officer at Transcend. A hospice provider’s digital presence can give patients and their families greater insight when it comes to the quality and depth of their services, Kudner said. “When you are dealing with the intimacy of someone coming into your home, the personalization and how you feel about the agency that you open the door for matters more,” Kudner told Hospice News.

A great attitude becomes a great mood, which becomes a great day, which becomes a great year, which becomes a great life. ~Zig Ziglar

Two programs recognized as 2025 AHA Circle of Life Award Honorees | AHA American Hospital Association, Washington, DC; Press Release; 7/17/25 Two programs will be honored with the American Hospital Association 2025 Circle of Life Award for their efforts in palliative and end-of-life care. The winning programs are Gilchrist, Baltimore, Maryland, and Bristol Hospice – Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii. Both winners will receive this prestigious recognition during the AHA’s Leadership Summit in Nashville on July 20-22. The Circle of Life Award honors hospital and palliative care programs that are ensuring equitable access to care, implementing nontraditional models of care delivery and payment, fully integrating palliative care into a system of care or a community, making palliative care financially sustainable, developing meaningful measures and metrics to track progress, or partnering with payers, other providers, community groups and faith communities.Editor's Note: For more information,

Regional anesthesia for hip fracture surgery in older adults: A retrospective comparison of outcomes using ACS NSQIP dataGeriatric Orthopaedic Surgery & Rehabilitation; Arissa M. Torrie, MD, MHS; Gerard P. Slobogean, MD, MPH; Rachel Johnson, MD; Ron E. Samet, MD; Samuel M. Galvagno, DO, PhD; Robert V. O’Toole, MD; Nathan N. O’Hara, PhD, MHA; 6/25Surgical fixation of hip fractures in older adults is associated with significant morbidity and mortality. This study found that regional anesthesia, presumably using peripheral nerve block techniques, may offer advantages beyond pain control, with potential protective benefits in high-risk hip fracture patients. Future clinical trials should examine peripheral nerve block benefits beyond pain management, identify mechanisms of action, determine optimal techniques for different risk profiles, and assess long-term outcomes. By combining the insights from this study with carefully designed future research, researchers can work towards developing more effective, patient-centered approaches to anesthesia for older adults undergoing surgical fixation of hip fractures.

Hospital decision-making and adoption of health-related social needs programs in US hospitalsJAMA Network Open; by Dina Zein, Cory E. Cronin, Neeraj Puro, Berkeley Franz, Elizabeth McNeill, Ji E. Chang; 6/25In response to health disparities in the US, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released a Framework for Health Equity recommending increased hospital commitment and leadership engagement around screening for health-related social needs (HRSNs). This cross-sectional study found that hospitals with multiple layers of management engagement tended to adopt multifaceted strategies that address patients’ social needs, which are critical components of health equity frameworks. Interestingly, hospitals where only senior management was involved were more likely to offer specific programs like food insecurity and transportation services, although these associations were generally smaller compared with when both senior and other management were engaged.

Simulating the overall hospital quality Star ratings with random measure weightsJAMA Network Open; Benjamin D. Pollock, PhD, MSPH; Daniel S. Ubl, MPH; Subashnie Devkaran, PhD; Sean C. Dowdy, MD; 7/25We found that only 244 US hospitals achieved reliable excellence in hospital quality in 2024 when defined as 90th percentile performance or better in at least 50.0% of 100,000 simulations using random weights for each measure in the CMS Overall Star Ratings. Our analysis highlights that there is meaningful variation in hospital quality performance across the spectrum of quality measures, even among 5-star hospitals. Future efforts to assess this variation may allow for better identification of reliably excellent hospitals, which could in turn lead to solicitation of evidence regarding the processes or cultures that separate reliable excellence from inconsistent greatness in hospital quality.