Literature Review

Crisis in care for dying people says Marie Curie as survey shows suffering Jersey Evening Post, UK News, United Kingdom; by UK News; 9/3/24 A third of dying people in England and Wales were severely or overwhelmingly affected by pain in the last week of life, according to a major survey said to show how “patchy and inconsistent” care for this group has become. End-of-life charity Marie Curie said its study of 1,179 bereaved people means it is the largest nationally representative post-bereavement survey in the UK in almost 10 years. Almost half of survey respondents (49%) said they were unhappy with at least one aspect of the care the dying person received and, of those, one in eight made a formal complaint. The research, in collaboration with King’s College London (KCL), Hull York Medical School and the University of Cambridge, also found that one in five dying people had no contact with their GP in the last three months of life. 

Hospice & Palliative Care Today exceeds 500,000 stories read!Announcement; 9/3/24Thank you to our 1750+ subscribers across 49 states for reading over 500,000 stories posted so far this year!

Hospice leaders: Culture the key to sustaining the workforceHospice News; by Jim Parker; 8/30/24In a time of workforce shortages, hospices are seeking the “secret sauce” that will help keep employees on board and bring new people into their fold. To find the right mix, hospice providers that have achieved national recognition for employer best practices point to a particular secret ingredient — a supportive culture with open lines of communication, a career path with room to grow and competitive compensation. For the California-based YoloCares, culture is critical, according to the nonprofit’s CEO Craig Dresang.Notable mentions: YoloCares, Vitas, Jennifer Blades of Haven Hospice.

If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got. ~ Jackie "Moms" Mabley

Doctors use problematic race-based algorithms to guide care every day. Why are they so hard to change?Stat email and article; by Katie Palmer, Usha Lee McFarling; 9/3/24Doctors use clinical algorithms every day to make decisions about the care they provide to patients. This math determines things like our surgical risk or likelihood of disease using factors such as blood pressure, age, weight, surgical history, and, often, our race. But one of these is not quite like the others — for years, clinicians have pushed back against the use of race in clinical algorithms. Publisher's note: Interesting article, although accessing full article may require subscription.

How to get people to do what you want and still like you in 3 steps, from a leadership expert CNBS - Make It - Leadership; by Tom Huddleston, Jr.; 9/2/24 One of the biggest challenges for any leader is figuring out how to hold people accountable for their mistakes without creating bad blood. In those situations, playing the blame game is always a losing strategy, according to leadership expert and bestselling author Michael Timms. The secret to calling out poor performance while maintaining a positive relationship with employees is to own up to your own mistakes first so you can inspire others to do the same, Timms said in a TED Talk in January. It’s a strategy called “modeling accountability.” Timms ... noted that he and other leaders often fall into the same trap: “blaming other people for a problem without considering my part in it.” ″[This is] something I teach management teams: You can’t inspire accountability in others until you model it yourself,” he said. 

Hospice & Community Care Labor Day Auction raises record $1.1 million NBC WGAL-8, Quarryville, PA; by Anne Shannon; 9/2/24 The 40th Hospice & Community Care Labor Day Auction raised a record-breaking $1.1 million during its two-day event in Lancaster County. The money helps provide services for those facing end-of-life decisions and their families. More than 400 volunteers help make it happen ... 

Bon Secours Home Care and Hospice announces new name HomeCare, Richmond, VA; 8/29/24 The Bon Secours Home Care and Hospice programs, which serves the greater Richmond area, announced a new name: Bon Secours Home Care and Hospice by Compassus. The name change reflects a joint venture partnership between Bon Secours Mercy Health, a Catholic health system in the U.S., and Compassus, a national provider of integrated home-based health care services, which was finalized earlier this year.

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?

$1 million donation for hospice house project[OH] WTAP; by Payton Brooker; 8/29/24In Marietta [OH], a donation of $1 million was made towards the Cawley Hospice and Community Hospice Foundation by Cathy Azar. This will go towards their plan to build a new hospice house in Washington County. Cathy came across the project when she was in the hospital and thought it would be a great way to honor her late husband, Robert Azar... “I said, ‘I think I can help you out’, and I said, ‘how about $1,000,000,” Azar said.

State seeks input on Columbia Gorge hospital, Gentiva hospice care The Lund Report, Oregon and SW Washington; by Nick Budnick; 8/29/24 State officials are checking in on two health care acquisitions that have occurred since August of 2022, the absorption of Mid-Columbia Medical Center into California-based Adventist Health as well as a private equity firm's acquisition of Kindred Hospice. Now the state wants to hear how the renamed entities are doing: Adventist Health Columbia Gorge and Kindred Hospice Care. “OHA wants to understand how ownership changes may have affected health care services at AHCG and Gentiva hospice agencies,” according to a state announcement. “We’d like to hear from patients, health care providers, employees, and community members who have interacted with AHCG or Gentiva in the past year.”

Loneliness tied to death ideation in older adults, study findsMcKnight's Long-Term Care News; by Kristen Fischer; 8/29/24A new study explored the relationship between loneliness, suicidal thoughts and death ideation in older adults. Overall, feeling lonely was linked with thoughts of wanting to die, according to the results... The researchers found that the subjective feeling of loneliness was more strongly linked with death ideation than with other measures of social disconnection, such as living alone or being socially isolated. The association between loneliness and a wish to die remained strong after the team controlled for depression and other markers of social disconnection. Regular attendance at religious services and other communal activities helped lower death ideation among the adults. Cognitive-behavioral therapy targeting depression and anxiety may also reduce the impact of loneliness.Publisher's note: It is difficult to underestimate the impact of loneliness and social disconnection. This article and study provide interesting implications for hospice patients and those who love them.

It could happen to you — how to prepare for and mitigate the fallout from a cyberattackMcKnight's Senior Living; by Kimberly Bonvissuto;8/28/24Everyone thinks they know about cybersecurity, but thinking about the effects a cyberattack could have on an organization should be enough to lose sleep over, according to risk management experts. ... Cybersecurity, at its core, is about confidentiality, integrity and availability, according to John P. DiMaggio, co-founder and CEO of Blue Orange Compliance, a risk assessment company. Including senior living in the definition of healthcare, he said that healthcare organizations are targets of cyber criminals because of their relatively weak defenses, the value of the data necessary for operations, and the numerous interfaces and sharing of information that occurs among providers. ... Reasonable security practices — considered the minimum — include risk analysis and management, access control measures, training, incident response planning, physical controls, technical safeguards, third party/vendor management, backup and disaster recovery and patch management. But DiMaggio recommended going above that minimum threshold by using recognized security practices to mitigate penalties and ensure regulatory compliance. Those practices, he said, include email and endpoint protection, access management, data loss prevention, asset and network management, vulnerability management, incident response, medical device security and cybersecurity policies.