Literature Review

Hospice of the Valley charity art gala raises record $1.2 million Hospice of the Valley; by Lin Sue Flood; 5/21/26 The energy inside the JW Marriott Camelback Inn ballroom was electric, as a spirited crowd of 500 gathered to support Hospice of the Valley’s compassionate care and community programs. The result was a historic $1.2 million raised at this year’s charity gala: aaha! art. food. wine. ... This record-breaking night also enables Hospice of the Valley’s specialized programs to continue to expand, from dementia support to grief counseling and community education provided at no charge.

Central Coast VNA & Hospice expands focus on aging-in-place support as regional demand grows K99.1 XLG, Monterey, CA; by Presswire.com; 6/5/26 Central Coast VNA & Hospice, a nonprofit home healthcare organization serving Monterey, Santa Cruz, San Benito, and South Santa Clara counties, is expanding its community education and outreach efforts around aging-in-place care services. The initiative responds to a growing number of families in the region seeking structured, professional support to help older adults live safely and independently at home, a trend observed broadly across California and the nation as the senior population continues to grow.

Dr. Joan Teno exposes the hidden problems with hospice ratings and quality scores | part one Teleios Collaborative Network (TCN); podcast hosted by Chris Comeaux with Dr. Joan Teno; 6/3/26 What if the hospice ratings patients and families rely on don’t tell the full story?   In Part One of this thought-provoking conversation, renowned hospice researcher and policy expert Dr. Joan Teno joins Chris Comeaux and Cordt Kassner to unpack the hidden flaws within today’s hospice quality measurement systems. Drawing on more than 30 years of experience shaping hospice and palliative care policy, Dr. Teno explains why many publicly reported quality measures may fail to capture the true experiences of patients and families.  She discusses the challenges of transparency, the unintended consequences of current reporting systems, concerns about fraud and oversight, and how artificial intelligence could help transform the future of hospice quality measurement. 

National Alliance for Care at Home voices concerns to CMS in response to the FY 2027 Hospice Proposed Rule National Alliance for Care at Home, Alexandria, VA; Press Release; 6/2/26 The National Alliance for Care at Home (the Alliance) submitted comments in response to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) Fiscal Year (FY) 2027 Hospice Wage Index proposed rule, which proposes payment and regulatory updates under the Medicare hospice benefit. The letter states that the proposed 2.4% hospice payment update for FY 2027 will not adequately account for the cost pressures hospice providers face in today’s healthcare delivery market. ... The Alliance also raised serious concerns about the appropriateness and data accuracy related to the hospice Service and Spending Variation Index (SSVI), and recommends that CMS pause any use of the SSVI indefinitely and undertake a transparent, collaborative approach with the provider community to better target its efforts to address hospice fraud, waste, and abuse. 

NPHI submits comments on FY 2027 Hospice Proposed Rule, urges CMS to strengthen transparency, support access, and advance meaningful reform  National Partnership for Healthcare and Hospice Innovation, Washington, DC; Press Release; 6/2/26The National Partnership for Healthcare and Hospice Innovation (NPHI), the national voice for nonprofit hospice and advanced illness care, has submitted formal comments to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) regarding the Fiscal Year (FY) 2027 Hospice Wage Index and Payment Rate Update, Hospice Conditions of Participation Updates, and Hospice Quality Reporting Program Requirements proposed rule. In the letter, NPHI welcomed CMS’s continued engagement with hospice stakeholders and offered detailed recommendations designed to strengthen patient access, improve transparency, reduce unnecessary administrative burden, and support high-quality, community-based hospice and palliative care. 

Compassion fatigue and spiritual care competence amongst palliative care nurses: a moderated mediation model of care quality and job satisfaction Journal of Clinical Nursing / Early View; by Enise Sürücü, Funda Veren, Hülya Kulakçı Altıntaş, Büşra Baş, and Zeynep Acar Demir; 5/30/26 Impact:

Making a health system merger succeed: Michigan Medicine’s journey toward a high-quality, coordinated statewide system of careNEJM Catalyst; by Scott A. Flanders, Margaret Dimond, David C. Miller; 4/26After its April 2023 acquisition of Sparrow Health, Michigan Medicine and its five-hospital system, University of Michigan Health, launched a major effort to advance business, clinical, and cultural integration across the new 11-hospital enterprise. The goal was to achieve a coordinated, integrated statewide system of care that delivered improved quality and better experience, while providing academic hospital-caliber care closer to home for patients across the state. Those efforts have led to improved financial performance, [increased employee satisfaction and reduced RN annual turnover]. Clinical integration, driven by the development of local clinical programs, initiatives to coordinate statewide care, and innovative technology solutions, has resulted in a higher quality of care delivered closer to home. For cultural integration, the keys to success have been leadership alignment, a clear vision and goals, a supportive infrastructure, strong systemwide communication, and achieving and celebrating early wins.

Get ready to access the Hospice Program for Evaluating Payment Patterns Electronic Report (PEPPER)CMS Center for Program Integrity; 5/28/26 CPI is getting really close to releasing the Hospice Program for Evaluating Payment Patterns Electronic Report (PEPPER). The Hospice PEPPER will be available through the PEPPER Portal in early June 2026. To ensure hospice providers can successfully access their reports, we ask that you distribute the following instructions to your members.

What we have once enjoyed, we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us. ~Helen Keller

Sunday newsletters focus on headlines and top read stories of the last week (in order) - enjoy!

Black grief, Black healing: Exploring African American parents grief with cultural implications for treatmentFamily Process; by Nyla Rogers, Shareefah Al'Uqdah, Denzell Brown, Briayanna Johnson; 6/26African American parents experience child loss at disproportionately high rates, yet family systems and grief literature have largely overlooked this population's grief experience. This paper examines how therapists can provide culturally responsive care to African American parents navigating the death of a child. Drawing on existing literature, this paper expounds on the historical trends within the African American family system while delineating unique African American grief practices. Practical and culturally relevant clinical practices such as facilitating robust social support networks, creating structured opportunities for public and communal mourning, and therapeutically addressing the intensity of grief-related emotional responses are provided. Family therapists are called to expand their grief frameworks and family interventions beyond individualized, Western-centric models to encompass the collective, justice-oriented dimensions of loss that shape the lived experiences of African American families.