Literature Review

Social Media Watch 9/12/25

Disaster preparedness in 2025: Recommendations for healthcare chief executive officers Becker's Hospital Review - Leadership & Management; by Anne Davila Casas Diamond; 9/9/25 September is National Preparedness Month, which aims to raise awareness about the importance of preparing for emergencies. The American College of Healthcare Executives advises healthcare executives to actively participate in disaster preparedness for natural and man-made disasters. This advice has never been more relevant as healthcare organizations plan for the 2026 fiscal year. The decreased financial resources from local, state and federal agencies require increased vigilance by healthcare leaders. ... Our preparedness now for the potential of man-made or natural disasters will benefit both our local communities and our workforces as we strive to keep highly reliable and effective operations under all situations. Editor's Note: For a wealth of resources, information, and stories we have published, go to our homepage, click on "Search" (if not already, "Login" to your subscription), and type in a key word that is relevant to your service area, e.g. disaster, hurricane, flood, fire, tornado, evacuate, et. al. 

UPDATED: CMS confirms launch of $75M nursing home staff training fund McKnights Long-Term Care News; by Kimberly Marselas; 9/9/25 Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz has announced that his agency is moving forward with $75 million in funding to support a long-awaited tuition reimbursement and training program for nursing home staff. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz has announced that his agency is moving forward with $75 million in funding to support a long-awaited tuition reimbursement and training program for nursing home staff. ... Reaction to the update Tuesday was varied ... noting that the spending could amount to about $5,000 per US nursing home.

NGHS breaks ground on philanthropy-funded hospice house Access WDUN, Gainesville, GA; by Caleb Hutchins; 9/9/25 Northeast Georgia Health System held a groundbreaking ceremony Tuesday morning for a philanthropy-funded hospice house near Gainesville. ... The project, which is expected to open in fall of 2026, is the first philanthropy-funded facility in NGHS’ history. Christopher Bray, chief philanthropy officer of the Northeast Georgia Health System Foundation, called the Stephens’ more-than $5 million donation, which kick-started the project, game-changing for the foundation and the health system at large.

The next phase in virtual nursing Becker's Health IT; by Ella Jeffries; 9/9/25 The face of a nurse now appears on a television screen in hundreds of rooms at Jackson, Mich.-based Henry Ford Jackson Hospital. From a command center down the hall, the nurse conducts safety checks, reviews charts and helps patients prepare for discharge — all without ever crossing the threshold. This new model, known as virtual nursing, is not a futuristic experiment so much as a response to an immediate crisis. Michigan is already short as many as 20,000 registered nurses, according to Eric Wallis, DNP, RN, chief nursing officer of Detroit-based Henry Ford Health, and the average nurse in the state is older than 50.

New van opens doors for Hospice of West Alabama clients Tuscaloosa News, Tuscaloosa, AL; by Gary Cosby, Jr.; 9/8/25 A new Hospice of West Alabama transport van is rolling through the streets, courtesy of the generosity of community donors. Hospice Executive Director Latrelle Hallum said the new vehicle will greatly expand the services they can offer to their clients. Before purchasing the new Toyota Sienna minivan, the organization did not have the ability to take clients places they needed to get to. "It's going to allow us to do a lot of extras. We will do Christmas lights tour for our patients and families in December, take them to graduations, or to see a newborn baby, or a Thanksgiving gathering, or to doctor's appointments. The only requirement is that it is not an ambulance. We can only transport people who are in a wheelchair," Hallum said.

Reducing family caregiver burden may prevent 30-day ED readmissions among community-dwelling older adults, study finds McKnights Long-Term Care News; by Foster Stubbs; 9/9/25 Alleviating caregiver burden may reduce returns to the emergency department for older adults up to 30 days after a discharge, according to research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The study examined 1409 dyads or duos of community-dwelling patients 65 years or older and their family caregivers. ... [Questions] included items about strain in the caregiver’s role and personal life associated with caregiving. ... "We interpret these findings as evidence that caregiver burden may contribute to a negative care transition, associated with 30-day ED revisits, ..."

Home health agency sues HHS over $34m Medicare payment recoupment Home Health Care News; by Morgan Gonzales; 9/8/25 Infinity Home Care of Lakeland, a Florida-based home health provider and affiliate of Amedisys, has sued the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services over Medicare recoupments. The Florida-based home health agency alleged that HHS completed “shoddy expert work” that led the agency to conclude that Medicare overpaid Infinity by $34 million for services from 2014 to 2016. According to the lawsuit, a contractor, Zone Program Integrity Contractors (ZPIC), reviewed 72 of the agency’s claims in 2017 and denied all 72 on the basis of errors with the face-to-face encounter documentation, that home health services were not medically reasonable and necessary or a lack of medical records. 

Healthcare Dealmakers—UHG, Amedisys close merger; Walgreens acquired and more Fierce Healthcare; by Dave Muoio; 9/5/25 Healthcare mergers and acquisitions are in no short supply as providers, health tech companies, retailers and other industry players look to expand their businesses and gain a competitive edge. Here’s a roundup of new deals that were revealed, closed, rumored or called off during the month of August.

Nursing homes can disrupt ‘rehabbed to death’ cycle with PDPM-based palliative care Skilled Nursing News; by Kristin Carroll; 9/7/25 ... Skilled nursing facilities can leverage the Patient Driven Payment Model (PDPM) to provide more palliative care to people near the end of life, helping to drive value-based care goals while improving the patient experience. However, much more needs to be done on the policy level to disrupt the current status quo, in which people commonly go through several care transitions near the end of life, driving up costs across the health care system while patients receive services that are not aligned with their own goals. Enabling concurrent SNF and hospice care is one change that could lead to improvement. These are assertions in the recent article “Rehab and Death: Improving End-Of-Life Care for Medicare Skilled Nursing Facility Beneficiaries,” published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

Brain scan measures aging rateNIH News in Health; 9/8/25Biologically speaking, some people age faster than others. Your aging rate can affect your health and disease risks. If you knew this rate, you might be able to work with your doctor to slow the aging process. A [Duke University] research team developed a way to measure aging based on a single brain scan. The team drew on their earlier studies, where they devised a way to measure biological aging using blood tests [and] combined scores with MRI scan data... [Results] accurately predicted how quickly a person’s ability to think and remember weakened with age. It also could predict a person’s risk of future disease and death.Publisher's note: I wonder if this tool might someday be incorporated into hospice eligibility criteria...?

Raising the standard of Arizona’s dementia care Lovin' Life; by Lin Sue Flood; 9/7/25 Arizona is setting a bold new standard to better support families impacted by dementia. A groundbreaking state mandate requires all memory care facilities to provide up to 12 hours of specialized dementia training to their staff, plus four hours of continuing education each year. This extensive training combines online video modules with hands-on, in-person skills sessions. Hospice of the Valley’s experienced Dementia Team is leading the way as one of the agencies the Arizona Department of Health Services has approved to deliver this comprehensive training. The nonprofit organization is unique in offering it as a free community service.

CDC Releases 2025/2026 flu vaccine recommendations LeadingAge; Press Release; 9/3/25 The Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP) at the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) on August 28, 2025 approved recommendations for flu vaccines for the 2025/2026 flu season. ... A key concern for LeadingAge members is whether COVID vaccine will be available for adults working in LeadingAge member communities who may choose vaccination, as it is widely believed that Medicare and private insurances will likely cover vaccines only for populations for which the shot is recommended. ... At this time, a flu vaccine is recommended for all individuals over the age of 6 months, with high-dose or adjuvanted flu vaccines recommended for individuals aged 65 years and older. Flu season is considered to run October 1 – March 31 each year ...