Oregon legislature passes bill Stop Bad Actors from Taking Advantage of Hospice Patients 
OregonLegislature.gov, Salem, OR; Press Release, Office of Senator Deb Patterson; 3/4/26 
Hospice began as a movement to provide end-of-life care for terminally ill patients. However, corporate investors have started buying up hospice agencies and reducing services as they try to maximize profits. In some states, this has led to patterns of fraud, abuse, and neglect. Today, the Oregon Legislature passed the Protecting the Dying Act (SB 1575), which enhances state oversight of hospice agencies. ... Senator Patterson began work on this issue after it was brought to her by a local hospice provider in her community. Iria Nishimura, CEO of Willamette Vital Health in Salem, said, “Hospice serves patients and families during the most vulnerable time of life. The state has a responsibility to ensure that providers entering this field are qualified, ethical, and capable of deliver high-quality care.”

Hospice patient who held toy drive for community has died:  Celebrating the life of 7-year-old Kenia Medina 
ABC KVIA-7, El Paso, TX; by Armando Ramirez; 3/3/26 
Kenia Marisol Huerta Medina, the 7-year-old hospice patient who held a toy drive for the other children during the holidays, has died according to the Hospice of El Paso. The Hospice of El Paso has released an update on the family of Kenia's behalf providing an update of her passing. ... Robert Enriquez, Interim CEO of Hospice El Paso, said "Kenia’s heart was a reflection of the very best of El Paso. Through our Butterfly Program, we aim to bring peace and joy to our youngest patients, but Kenia reversed that gift and gave it back to our entire community. Her decision to use her final wish to bring smiles to other children is something we will never forget."
Editor's Note: May we receive Kenia’s final gift not simply as a story that warms the heart, but as a summons to the deeper work before us. A seven-year-old child—facing the narrowing horizon of her own life—chose to widen the horizon for others. May we, as leaders and caregivers in hospice and palliative care, allow Kenia’s giving heart and hands to shape our work. May we look beyond programs and protocols to the sacred opportunities before us each day—to nurture dignity, create moments of joy, and empower our patients to give—and teach us—in ways that live on far beyond their numbered years.

New Job Board Posting: Chief Executive Officer, Hildegard House, Louisville, KY 
Hildegard House | Ashley Rountree and Associates; Executive Job Posting; 3/9/26 
Hildegard House (HH) is Kentucky's first and only Comfort Care Home. Through the support of our community and with the help of many volunteers, we provide a home and compassionate care for individuals at the end of life who have no home or loved ones to care for them, allowing each of them to die with dignity. ... The next CEO of Hildegard House (HH) will step into a pivotal leadership role at a moment of stability, growth, and meaningful transition. ... The retirement of the founding CEO creates a unique opening for a visionary leader to build upon a decade of mission driven success and to chart the organization's future direction.

Granite VNA names James Culhane President and CEO 
Granite VNA, Concord, NH; Press Release; 3/5/26 
After a rigorous and comprehensive executive search, Granite VNA, New Hampshire’s largest not-for-profit home health and hospice agency, has named James Culhane as its next President and CEO. He will succeed Beth Slepian, who has served in that role since 2015, upon her retirement in June 2026. Culhane has served as President and CEO of Lake Sunapee Region VNA & Hospice in New London, New Hampshire, since 2015. 

Hospice & Palliative Care of Chenango finalizes partnership with NYS Veterans Home in Oxford 
The Evening Sun, Oxford, NY; by Rebecca Laibowitz; 3/9/26 
Hospice & Palliative Care of Chenango and the New York State Veterans Home at Oxford recently finalized a long-awaited partnership which now allows residents of the home and their families to receive hospice care from the nurses and volunteers of the organization. Prior to this partnership the home would have to send away people in seeking hospice care as strict regulations require a contract between a nursing home and hospice care provider in order for that type of care to be administered.

Oncologist perspectives on timely hospice referral: A qualitative study 
American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care; by Andrew Lynch, Andrea Altschuler, Joseph P Cosgrove, Hannah Whitehead, Corey Schwartz, Raymond Liu, Mina Chang; 3/7/26 
Background: Late hospice referral rates are on the rise and are associated with negative outcomes at the end of life (EoL). Rates of late hospice referral vary drastically from oncologist to oncologist, and behavioral and psychological factors among individual oncologists have been identified as potential contributors to this variability. ... 
Conclusions: Numerous factors independent of hospice eligibility were reported to influence hospice referral practices among oncologists. While some factors represent challenging cultural and social barriers to timely hospice referral, other system- and patient-specific barriers offer opportunities for potential interventions. 

Delivering palliative care in mental health nursing settings: A systematic review 
Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing; by Oladapo Akinlotan, Allen O'Connor, Ruben Seetharamdoo, Mo Ghoorun; 3/6/26 
Palliative care can provide comfort, alleviate suffering, and improve quality of life; however, access to palliative care for people with mental illnesses at the end of their lives is extremely poor. As the need for palliative care is expected to rise significantly in the future, palliative care must be considered a global health priority. ... 
Recommendations: Although care for people with complex mental illness is complex while dying, conversations around palliative care need to be as part of a therapeutic relationship and engagement. Also, palliative care staff have an important role in communicating end-of-life planning to patients' families and carers.

Chronic pain and unrecognized grief: epistemic barriers to personal and social recognition 
Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy; by Christopher Jude McCarroll, Ying-Tung Lin, Dominik Koesling, and Claudia Bozzaro; 3/29/26 
What is it to grieve? What is the nature of grief? ... Importantly, a close examination of the phenomenology of chronic pain helps illuminate the ways in which it also involves the kind of losses that we can grieve over. The losses involved in experiences of chronic pain impact one’s practical identity in ways that can lead to grief. This chronic pain grief remains largely unrecognized, however. We outline four epistemic barriers to recognizing the grief involved in experiences of chronic pain. ...

(A) The misconception of grief and the invisibility of the losses underlying grief in chronic pain ...
(B) The (assumed) visibility of bodily pain ...
(C) Different assumptions concerning time ...
(D) The misidentification of grief in chronic pain as depression ...

Editor's Note: Even in hospice and palliative care, "grief" is narrowly framed as bereavement after death or to inaccurate descriptions of anticipatory grief. Yet the CMS Hospice Conditions of Participation require grief support for patients and families throughout illness—long before death occurs. Every member of the care team enters rooms already filled with active loss. This article explores the often-unrecognized grief within chronic pain and illness—realities that most of the patients you serve carry every day.

Family says Farmington man who died en route to hospice 'knew he was dying in jail' 
ABC 40/29 News, Rogers, AR; by Adam Roberts and Carlee Gilpin; 3/7/26 
The family of a 74-year-old Farmington man who died in jail said they tried for weeks to get him moved to a health care facility. James Edward Gore was arrested on Feb. 9, accused of stabbing two women. He died on Feb. 25 while being moved from jail to hospice care. The family held a news conference Friday, Mar. 6. They accused the prosecutor's office, the judge presiding over the case, and the sheriff's office of delaying hospice care and not communicating with the family. ... James Edward Gore was arrested after police say he used scissors and a knife to stab two women on Feb. 9. At the time, a family member told police Gore had just had a tumor removed from his frontal lobe. He also recently had a stroke, medication issues, and cancer.

‘Don’t play God’ in end-of-life conversations 
Medscape; by Medscape's editorial team; 3/5/26 
For many clinicians, the most difficult words to utter are not a complex diagnosis but a simple admission: “We have reached the end of what medical care can do to make your loved one better.” An ICU/emergency room (ER) nurse with 30 years of experience says avoiding this reality can “prolong the dying process” rather than an extension of meaningful life — and called “false hope in the next procedure, next drug, next consultation” the “cruelest thing a well-meaning caregiver can do.”

Harbors Home Health and Hospice expands community education 
The Daily World; by Jerry Knaak; 3/6/26 
Harbors Home Health and Hospice was selected as the recipient of more than $19,000 in donations at the March 2025 100+ Harbor Women Who Care giving event. The funds were awarded after Harbors was nominated alongside two other local nonprofits and chosen by the attendees for the organization’s commitment to caring for patients and families throughout the community. Rather than using the funds internally, Harbors leadership saw the award as an opportunity to give back through community education focused on aging and end-of-life planning.

How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard. ~ A. A. Milne