Literature Review

Rita and Alex Hillman Foundation announces $500,000 in funding for nine projects to improve serious illness and end of life care Globe Newswire; by Rita & Alex Hillman Foundation; 9/10/24 The Rita and Alex Hillman Foundation ... announced nine grants to support innovative, early-stage interventions that address the serious illness and end of life needs of marginalized populations. The $500,000 in funding, part of a collaborative effort with The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, will advance nursing-driven initiatives that improve care for diverse populations and expand access to high-quality end of life services. ... This year’s grants demonstrate a commitment to the design, development, and delivery of better and more equitable care. The 2024 HSEI grant recipients are:

When rounding sparked improvements, per 4 chief nursing officers Becker's Hospital Review; by Erica Carbajal; 9/5/24 Rounding the floor with front-line nurses and staff is more than just a management practice for leaders to show face — it is a vital tool for connecting with employees and driving meaningful change. In conversations with hospital leaders, they often echo the sentiment of how routinely spending time with front-line staff uncovers opportunities to address pain points in their daily workflow. With nurses often pointing to lack of resources and support as drivers of job dissatisfaction and burnout, rounding represents a key strategy to positively affect staff engagement and retention, and thus, patient care. Becker's recently asked four chief nursing officers to share a recent example of a time when rounding sparked a process change or improvement at their hospital. Here are their responses: ... Editor's note: "Rounding" best practices and outcomes apply to hospice and palliative care multidisciplinary teams. 

Henry Ford Health to take over 8 Ascension hospitalsModern Healthcare; by Dustin Walsh; 9/4/24A joint venture between Henry Ford Health and Ascension Michigan will launch on Oct. 1, a spokesperson for Henry Ford Health confirmed to Crain’s. Under the no-cash deal, eight Ascension and Genesys hospitals and an addiction treatment center will be rebranded under Henry Ford Health.

Hospital to hold focus groups after Facebook controversyBecker's Health IT; by Giles Bruce; 8/29/24An Idaho hospital plans to host focus groups after a Facebook post received a flood of negative comments about its emergency care. Local resident Cassidy Chun posted Aug. 13 on Facebook about her grandfather's emergency department experience at Rexburg, Idaho-based Madison Memorial Hospital, where she said he had to wait hours to see a physician after crushing his hands in an accident and deal with apathetic staff along the way. Her post on the Life in Rexburg Facebook group received more than 200 comments, many of them echoing similar problems with the hospital's ED.Publisher's note: How does your hospice track social media comments? How do you respond?

Site-of-Care shifts and payments—A viable strategy to control health care costs?JAMA Open Network; Lee A. Fleisher, MD, ML; Sheila P. Burke, RN, MPA; 8/24The authors sought to determine what proportion of care was currently being performed in hospital-based settings and investigated how much could be shifted to nonhospital settings today and 7 to 10 years in the future with technological advances. They found that the major barriers to site-of-care shifts were economic arrangements, ownership models, and perceived loss of continuity of care at alternative sites. These results affirm their view that to reduce health care spending and protect Medicare trust funds, it will be critical to develop financial incentives and, just as importantly, eliminate financial disincentives to drive care to the safest and lowest-cost site of service.

Health systems brace for the 'silver tsunami'Becker's Hospital Review; by Laura Dyrda; 8/23/24Around 10,000 Americans turn 65 years old every day, gaining access to Medicare benefits. The number of Medicare beneficiaries is expected to continue growing in the next five years, and health systems are making changes to keep up. In 2020, around 73 million Baby Boomers were eligible for Medicare benefits, and by 2030 all Baby Boomers will be Medicare-eligible, according to the Census Bureau. Advances in medicine and healthy lifestyle mean people are living longer and demanding more from their care. "In the next five years, the most significant disruptor to healthcare will be the capacity challenges associated with the 'silver tsunami' of baby boomers hitting the age of healthcare consumption," said Jonathan D. Washko, MBA, FACPE, NRP, AEMD, Assistant Vice President, CEMS Operations, Northwell Health; Assistant Professor, Department of Emergency Medicine, Pre-hospital and Disaster Medicine, Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra, Northwell Health. "In this environment, coupled with lowering revenues, staffing shortages and higher expenses, healthcare is being forced from an abundance mindset to one of scarcity."

Doctors saved her life. She didn’t want them to. DNYUZ; by Kate Raphael;  8/26/24 Marie Cooper led her life according to her Christian faith. ... [And, she] always said that at the end of her life, she did not want to be resuscitated. ... Last winter, doctors found cancer cells in her stomach. She’d had “do not resuscitate” and “do not intubate” orders on file for decades and had just filled out new copies, instructing medical staff to withhold measures to restart her heart if it stopped, and to never give her a breathing tube. In February, Ms. Cooper walked into the hospital for a routine stomach scope to determine the severity of the cancer. After the procedure, [Ms. Cooper's daughter] visited her mother in the recovery room and saw her in a panic. ... [The daughter] called for help and was ushered to a waiting room while the medical team called an emergency code. Ms. Cooper grew even more distressed and “uncooperative,” according to medical records. Doctors restrained her and inserted a breathing tube down her throat, violating the wishes outlined in her medical chart. Ms. Uphold, livid, confronted the doctors, who could not explain why Ms. Cooper had been intubated. ... 

Couple marry in ICU an hour before bride’s father takes his last breath Our Community Now, North Providence, RI; by OCN staff; 8/22/24 A Rhode Island hospital held an emergency wedding that had to be performed before the bride’s father died from muscular dystrophy. Sabrina Silveira-DaCosta says her father, 58-year-old Frank Silveira, was Portuguese-born and raised, a serious chef and a five-star dad. ... With Silveira’s health rapidly declining, his family realized he wasn’t going to make it his daughter’s wedding on Sep. 7, so plans changed. “Everyone was able to bring the wedding to him in the hospital, and he got to walk me down the aisle,” Silveira-DaCosta said. From his intensive care unit bed, Silveira escorted his daughter down the hospital hallway Monday into the hands of her fiancé, Sam DaCosta. ... Silveira-DaCosta’s father died about an hour after he walked her down the aisle. “It’s very complex. It’s a lot of emotion. Our community hospitals don’t get enough credit because any big hospital couldn’t have done this for us,” she said.

Capitol Notebook: New study spotlights Iowa health care landscape TheGazette; by The Gazette-Lee Des Moines Bureau; 8/22/24 More Iowa health care facilities have closed than opened since 2008, and more Iowa hospitals are operating at a loss as workforce shortages and costs rise. ... Key findings of the report include: 

Palliative care is a viable option for frail elderly patients with neurocognitive disorders admitted for hip fractures BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders; by Justine Boulet, Etienne L Belzile, Norbert Dion, Chantal Morency, Mélanie Bérubé, Alexandra Tremblay, Stéphane Pelet; 8/10/24 Most patients presenting with a hip fracture regardless of their comorbidities are surgically treated. A growing body of research states that a certain type of elderly patient could benefit more from a palliative approach. ... The presence of [a nuerocognitive disorder] NCD and diminished prefracture autonomy strongly support counseling for palliative care. The high rate of complications when surgery is proposed for frail patients with multiple comorbidities suggests that the concept of palliative surgery needs to be revisited. 

Deals reached to keep some Steward hospitals in Massachusetts open, Gov. Healey says Boston 25 News; by Colin A. Young, State House News Service; 8/16/24 Gov. Maura Healey announced late Friday morning that Massachusetts will take St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Brighton by eminent domain in order to keep the hospital open while it transitions to a new owner. ... The governor said deals in principle have been struck to transition operations at the other four for-sale Steward Health Care hospitals – Saint Anne’s Hospital in Fall River, Good Samaritan Medical Center in Brockton, the Holy Family Hospitals in Methuen and Haverhill and Morton Hospital in Taunton – to new operators. ...

34 hospitals, health systems raising workers' pay Becker's Hospital Review; by Kelly Gooch; 8/15/24 The following hospitals and health systems have announced or shared plans for raising workers' pay this year. This is not an exhaustive list. This webpage was last updated on Aug. 15. 

Factors associated with Do Not Resuscitate status and palliative care in hospitalized patients: A national inpatient sample analysis Palliative Medicine Reports; by Jean-Sebastien Rachoin, Nicole Debski, Krystal Hunter, Elizabeth CerceoIn the United States, the proportion of hospitalized patients with DNR, PC, and DNR with PC increased from 2016 to 2019. Overall, inpatient mortality and LOS fell, but hospital charges per patient increased. Significant gender and ethnic differences emerged. Black patients and males were less likely to have DNR status and had higher inpatient mortality, LOS, and hospital charges.