Literature Review

Partnership for Quality Home Healthcare to merge with National Alliance for Care at Home Home Health Care News; by Audrie Martin; 1/17/25 The Partnership for Quality Home Healthcare (PQHH) will shut down effective March 1. The PQHH board of directors will join efforts with the National Alliance for Care at Home (the Alliance) to create a stronger and unified voice for the industry. By collaborating with the Alliance, the PQHH board aims to enhance advocacy on public policy and regulatory issues impacting the home health community. Their goal is to promote a health care system that acknowledges home health’s vital role in providing compassionate, value-driven care. ... Since its founding in 2010, PQHH has represented community — and hospital-based home health care agencies, working in partnership with government officials to ensure access to high-quality home health care. This mission was at the forefront of their decision to close.

ASTP Rule codifies requirements for TEFCA-Qualified health information networks McDermott Will & Emery, Washington, DC; by James A. Cannatti III, Jennifer S. Geetter, and Nathan Gray; 1/15/25 On December 16, 2024, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy/Office of the NationaTl Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ASTP) published the Health Data, Technology, and Interoperability: Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA) final rule in the Federal Register as part of its continued focus on improving information sharing among healthcare stakeholders. Rather than codifying comprehensive substantive and procedural requirements for entities participating in TEFCA, the final rule provides a flexible framework establishing how such decisions will be made in current and future subregulatory documents. 

New inpatient centers unveiled as other hospice programs consider closure Hospice News; by Holly Vossel; 1/9/25 Hospice providers across the country have recently launched new inpatient facilities as 2025 unfolds. The new year may also bring closures of certain hospice programs

Health systems: It's time to break up with short-termism Becker's Hospital Review; by Molly Gamble; 1/10/25Health systems begin 2025 emerging from a half-decade of crisis management. Now is the time for executive teams to lift their heads from quarterly survival and make bets on their long-term future. ... In recent years, a number of leaders, including those within health systems, openly declared their departure from 10-year strategic plans. Even five-year outlooks are considered ambitious, some argued. Agility and short-term performance is sometimes hailed as the hallmark of savvy leaders, while long-term vision risks being dismissed as impractical or naive. This mindset may have served its purpose during the stop-and-go nature of the pandemic, but risks leaving organizations flat-footed and without a defined strategy for what could come next. Teams may feel the shift. The return of competitive, distinct and long-term plans will require systems' executive teams and boards to revive organizational muscles that may have lain dormant through years of crisis response. 

Hospice CEO’s top predictions for 2025 Hospice News; by Jim Parker; 1/10/25Hospice News spoke with a group of industry leaders about the most pressing market forces and trends that will shape the space during 2025. Their comments carried some common threads, including rising demand for care in the home, continued labor pressures, industry consolidation and intensifying regulatory scrutiny. They also spoke about the need for greater integration of hospice into the larger health care continuum and the benefits of operators broadening their scope of services. During these conversations, four key themes rose to the forefront for the coming year.

Kirva Hospice CEO: Quality begins with staff education, engagement Hospice News; by Jim Parker; 1/7/25 Long-time hospice CEO Cheryl Hamilton Fried has taken the helm at Kirva Hospice, a new, standalone nonprofit established by the public service organizations Jewish Family Services and Beth Shalom. Kirva serves the Richmond, Virginia, region with plans to expand into contiguous markets. ... About 16% of their patients are of the Jewish faith.Q: What are your top priorities as you take the helm at Kirva? Developing culture, that’s always been big for me. I’ve done that everywhere I’ve gone. A: Developing people, so I’ve already tapped a couple of managers to elevate to directors, as we are growing our census pretty rapidly and really identifying areas that are unmet in the community. That’s what Kirva and Jewish Family Services want to do, is look at where the gaps are in senior care.

Seven trends in senior living that will define 2025 and beyond McKnights Senior Living; by Michele Hollerand, PhD, MBA; 1/6/25 Senior living is in the midst of a major transformation, and seven major trends have emerged as key drivers of the strategic plans adopted by boards across the country. Those trends will shape the way organizations position themselves for the future to capture a new customer base in 2025 and beyond.

CDC weekly US map: Influenza summary update U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) - HHS.gov; retrieved from the internet 1/2/25, with most current data from 12/21/24 A Weekly Influenza Surveillance Report Prepared by the Influenza Division: Outpatient Respiratory Illness Activity Map Determined by Data Reported to ILINet. This system monitors visits for respiratory illness that includes fever plus a cough or sore throat, also referred to as ILI, not laboratory confirmed influenza and may capture patient visits due to other respiratory pathogens that cause similar symptoms. Editor's note: Click here for the map and bookmark it to regularly monitor your service areas through this flu season.

What’s the most impactful thing you learned this year? Harvard Business Review (HBR); by Kelsey Hansen; 12/31/24 What’s one thing you learned this year that changed the way you lead? We asked HBR’s global social media community this question to get a sense of the lessons our readers are taking into the new year. We’ve collected some highlights here so that we can all reflect and learn from one another. Our readers shared lessons learned around the importance of (truly) listening; leading with vulnerability and humility; and why we should all prioritize reflection and lifelong education. In the spirit of continuous learning, we’ve also included some resources to dig deeper in HBR articles and podcasts. ...

In Memoriam: Jimmy Carter helped build the hospice community Hospice News; by Jim Parker; 12/30/24 ... During his tenure as president, Carter was essential to the establishment of the Medicare Hospice Benefit. His administration launched the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ demonstration project to test the model, leading to passage of a law establishing the benefit during the subsequent Reagan presidency. Prior to these efforts, hospice care was delivered predominantly by volunteers who relied on philanthropy to operate. The scale of these early providers was very limited due to lack of payment, as was access to their services. “For decades, the Carter family has championed open dialogue about the needs of patients at the end of life,” Dr. Vicki Jackson, board president of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine (AAHPM), told Hospice News in an email. “Their vocal support for hospice care over the past year has made an immeasurable impact and brought information about this essential subspeciality of medical care to a national audience.”

Hospice News’ top 10 stories of 2024 Hospice News; by Holly Vossel; 12/13/24 Fraud and program integrity concerns dominated the news in 2024, along with large acquisitions, payment rules and regulatory changes. This year saw regulatory evolutions spurred by program integrity concerns, as well as the introduction of landmark legislation, shifts in reimbursement trends and a change in presidential administration with unknown impacts across the care continuum. The U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) ramped up auditing activity in the space while also sunsetting the hospice component of its value-based insurance design (VBID) model demonstration ahead of its initial expiration. Meanwhile, lawmakers unveiled a bill with some of the most significant reforms proposed to date for hospice payment and oversight. Dubbed as the Hospice Care Accountability, Reform, and Enforcement (Hospice CARE) Act, the bill has ignited conversations across the industry about future sustainability, growth and program integrity. [Click on the title's link to continue reading.]

For young adults, caregiving isn't just hard. It can shape you for life. National Public Radio - CAI - Local NPR for the Cape, Coast & Islands; by Kat McGown; 12/23/24 ... There are days when Jordyn Glick, 27, can't eat or drink at all. She gets so tired and weak she can barely stand up. She has gastroparesis, where food stalls out in her stomach and doesn't get digested. It comes with unpredictable bouts of nausea, periods of agony in her guts, and malnutrition. ... Dakota Heath, her 26-year-old boyfriend of four years, is her watchman, "always picking up on the small things," he says. He's on alert for her next flareup, the kind that can leave her bedridden for a week. ... Young caregivers have always been there, doing all the same things that adults do — ... About one-quarter of all family caregivers are between 18 and 36, according to the National Alliance for Caregiving. One survey suggests that almost half of them are men. They're more likely to be Latino or Black; a survey in 2018 found that only 17% were white. They've just been invisible. "They fall into every potential crack that exists," says Melinda Kavanaugh, a professor of social work at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee who is one of the few researchers who study this population. In terms of resources, "Nothing is targeted for a 22-year-old. Nothing."

CMS names first Hospice Special Focus Program Cohort, delays list of future candidates Hospice News; by Jim Parker; 12/23/24 Finalized in the 2024 home health payment rule, the program is designed to identify poor performing hospices, mandate quality improvement and in some cases impose additional penalties. However, stakeholders in the hospice space have contended that the agency’s methodology for selecting hospices for the program is deeply flawed. For this reason, they have argued that the list of operators should not be made public. Though CMS published the list, it delayed the release of a second that would point to future candidates for the program. “CMS has also generated a list of future SFP candidates. We are not publishing the candidate list at this time, but we are sharing the underlying data used to create both lists to allow for external review, thereby ensuring transparency in the process by which low-performing hospices are identified,” the agency indicated on its website. “We will continue to work with providers, patients and their families, and industry, to improve hospice care across the nation.” Stakeholders applauded the delay, including the National Alliance for Care at Home. [Click on the title's link to continue reading.]