Literature Review

Illinois launches PACE services to provide better care integration for elderly population State of Reform - Illinois News; by Maddie McCarthy; 7/2/24 The Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE) officially launched in Illinois in June, and designated PACE centers have begun rolling out services to their members. ... “PACE is an integrated model of care that provides all the care and services covered by Medicare and Medicaid, as authorized by the interdisciplinary team, as well as additional medically-necessary care and services not covered by Medicare and Medicaid,” said the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services (HFS) in a statement sent to State of Reform. Illinois has five regions offering PACE services: West Chicago, South Chicago, Southern Cook County, Peoria, and East St. Louis. HFS and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) awarded contracts to seven designated centers.

States Advancing All-Payer Health Equity Approaches and Development (AHEAD) Model CMS.gov; 7/2/24 On July 2, 2024 CMS announced that Connecticut, Maryland, and Vermont will be the first state participants in the States Advancing All-Payer Health Equity Approaches and Development (AHEAD) Model. Hawaii will also participate, pending satisfaction of certain requirements. Applications to participate in Cohort 3 of the model are due August 12, 2024 at 3:00 p.m. EST (Cohort 3). Eligibility requirements and additional model details can be found in the NOFO.  To stay up to date on model announcements, events, and resources, please sign up for the AHEAD Model listserv.

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

Dwayne Johnson sings Moana song for a 4-year-old girl in home hospice care: 'It's my honor' People; by Tommy McArdle; 4/2/24 Dwayne Johnson said the Make-a-Wish Foundation connected him with the family of a young girl who "watches 'Moana' every day, all day." Dwayne made a special video for a major Moana fan.  On July 1, the actor, 52, shared a video on Instagram in which he said the Make-a-Wish Foundation had reached out to him with an urgent request to send a message to a 4-year-old girl named Lily Guerrero, who Johnson said is currently on home hospice care. "A 'rush' wish means what the implication sounds like, which is time is just not on our side when it comes to this particular wish," Johnson said in the video. "This rush wish is that Lily is on home hospice now and she watches Moana every day, all day, her dad said. Her wish is to have Dwayne Johnson sing 'You're Welcome' to her and have it recorded so she can listen to it over and over and over and over." [Click on the title's link to view the article and its video of Dwayne Johnson telling the public about Lily and singing to her.]

Hospices’ 2024 Public Policy Priorities Hospice News; by Jim Parker; 6/27/24 A group of hospice leaders recently participated in Hospice Action Week, a lobbying event held last week by the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO) and the Hospice Action Network. In their meetings with legislators, providers made known their policy priorities. A key goal of these discussions was to establish open lines of communication with congressional offices to foster continued advocacy on hospice issues, according to NHPCO COO and interim CEO Ben Marcantonio. [Key issues include:]

Diagnosis for 6.26.24: Checking the pulse of Florida health care news and policy [Certificate of Need] Florida Politics, scroll down to "Death and Dying"; 6/26/24 Florida health care regulators this week announced they tentatively denied 21 Certificate of Need (CON) applications for new hospice programs and approved 9 others. Heavily populated Broward and Hillsborough counties drew the most interest, with seven providers wanting to establish new hospice programs in each area. [For details, click on the title's link and scroll down to "Death and Dying."]

6 guidelines from ASCO on AI, cancer care Becker's Hospital Review; by Ashleigh Hollowell; 6/25/24 Leaders at the American Society of Clinical Oncology published a formal document June 25 that outlines what the group deems as the most appropriate use of artificial intelligence when it comes to clinical oncology care. ... When considering AI technology for oncological care, the American Society of Clinical Oncology says clinicians should keep the following principles in mind to guide their use: 

Empowering ‘deeply undervalued’ caregivers would improve ‘lifeline for older adults’ McKnights Senior Living; by Kimberly Bonvissuto; 6/28/24 Direct care workers and family caregivers remain “deeply undervalued” and often overlooked despite calls for investment in the care economy, according to the authors of a new report. “These caregivers provide a lifeline for older adults, people with disabilities, and people living with chronic conditions,” PHI and the National Alliance for Caregiving said in an issue brief released Wednesday. “Empowering them in their roles will help to ensure high quality, responsive care to meet the needs and preferences of millions of Americans now and in the future.” The organizations called on providers, Congress, the Department of Labor, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the federal Health Resources and Services Administration, states, managed care plans and advocates to invest in the “essential partnership” between direct care workers and family caregivers. The new brief includes insights from a variety of stakeholders ...  The result is a list of recommendations that prioritize improvements to direct care jobs.Editor's Note: Our sponsor, Composing Life Out of Loss, equips hospice and palliative care organizations with caregiver education and support video libraries to strengthen relationships between the direct care professional and the family caregiver, with timely information for the entire family. Contents are written to CMS CoPs, CAHPS, and contemporary grief research; English and Spanish.

A little help from your friends... Jennifer Hale, MSN, RN, CHPN, CPHQA little help from your friends is a memorial fund set up for Jennifer Hale's family. If interested, you can read more about it and donate here. Donations accepted 6/30/24 - 7/15/24. ... We recently announced Jennifer Hale unexpectedly died Friday, 6/21/24. Vice President of Quality and Standards at Compassus, former Vice President Clinical Services at Optum Palliative Care and Hospice, and former Executive Director of the Georgia Hospice & Palliative Care Organization, Jennifer was widely known, respected, and loved in the hospice community. We share our condolences with her family, friends, and colleagues. Her obituary is posted here.

National health expenditure projections, 2023–32: Payer trends diverge as pandemic-related policies fade Health Affairs - Research Article - Costs & Spending; by Jacqueline A. Fiore, Andrew J. Madison, John A. Poisal, Gigi A. Cuckler, Sheila D. Smith, Andrea M. Sisko, Sean P. Keehan, Kathryn E. Rennie, and Alyssa C. Gross; 6/12/24 Health care spending growth is expected to outpace that of the gross domestic product (GDP) during the coming decade, resulting in a health share of GDP that reaches 19.7 percent by 2032 (up from 17.3 percent in 2022). National health expenditures are projected to have grown 7.5 percent in 2023, when the COVID-19 public health emergency ended. This reflects broad increases in the use of health care, which is associated with an estimated 93.1 percent of the population being insured that year. ... Amonth eh major payers, Medicare has the highest projected ten-year average spending growth rath, mainly because of enrollment into the program. [Click on the title's link to examine this article's content and tables.]

A scoping review of dementia interventions in home-based primary careJournal of the American Medical Directors Association; by Jeffrey D. Weiner BA, Bruce Leff MD, Christine S. Ritchie MD, MSPH; 6/24Home-based primary care (HBPC) provides interdisciplinary, longitudinal, comprehensive care at home to homebound older adults. The prevalence of dementia among HBPC recipients is approximately 50%... Despite high prevalence of dementia among homebound older adults receiving HBPC, there are a dearth of studies on HBPC-specific dementia interventions. Future studies should consider adapting and testing interventions found to be effective in other settings to HBPC.

Nursing Home Star Ratings and end-of-life care quality: Lessons learned from the Veterans Health AdministrationJournal of the American Medical Directors Association; by Joan Carpenter, Daniel Kinder, Dawn Smith, Mary Ersek, Melissa Wachterman, Joshua Thorpe, Donald R Sullivan, Jennifer Bailey, Scott Shreve, Ann Kutney-Lee; 6/24Our findings suggest that the current [VA nursing homes, known as Community Living Centers (CLCs)] star rating system is not sufficient to assess the quality of EOL care. [The VA's Bereaved Family Survey (BFS)] scores, or a comparative EOL quality of care measure, should be integrated into CLC quality rating systems.Publisher's Note: If the VA is integrating an EOL quality measure into their NF Star Rating, should Medicare?

The impact of clinical internship experience on nursing students' attitudes towards death and choices of end-of-life care: A self-control study Nursing Opens; Jingyuan Jiang, Jing Zhou, Xiaoli Chen, Xiaolin Zhu, Hao Zhang, Qin Zhang, Jianna Zhang; 6/28/24  Attitude towards death refers to an individual's evaluative and stable reactions to death events, reflecting their psychological tendencies and characteristics. ... Death is an inevitable part of life, and individuals must face the reality of death. ... The findings of this study suggest that real clinical experiences in the emergency department contribute to nursing students' development of a positive attitude towards death and a more positive view of providing end-of-life care in a hospital setting. Incorporating teachings on end-of-life care in a hospital setting into death education courses can further enhance nursing students' understanding and acceptance of end-of-life care.