Literature Review

Save A Lot donates 7,000 pounds of food and $500 to local hospice Hazard Herald [KY], by Justin Begley; 4/18/24Save A Lot has once again lent its support by donating seven thousand pounds of food and water, along with a $500 gift card, to the Greg and Noreen Hospice Center. This year marks the fifth consecutive year that the grocery chain has made such a donation to hospice. Jason Smith, a district manager for Save A Lot, alongside management from other stores, was on hand to unload truckloads of supplies to replenish the hospice’s pantry ...

Primary and specialty palliative care utilization at a regional Burn center Oxford Academic / Journal of Burn Care & Research; by Zoe Tao, MD, Alexandra Hoffman, BS, Anna Stecher, MD, Niknam Eshraghi, MD, FACS; 4/20/24There is little research informing appropriate specialty palliative care consultation over primary palliative care practice, or the ability of the burn surgeon to perform skills such as effective goals of care discussions. ... There is bias in diverting both primary and specialty palliative care resources toward acutely ill patients and those with less immediate projected mortality may need additional attention.

Change in long-term care: Nursing homes across U.S. closing limaohio.com, by Precious Grundy; 4/19/24... According to the American Health Care Association website, more than 1,000 nursing homes have closed in the United States since 2015. ... According to the Population Reference Bureau website, in 2050 the population older than 65 will increase from 58 million (in 2022) to 82 million in just a few decades. The topic of long-term care will remain in questions. The American Health Care Association also said nursing homes across the United States have closed due to staffing shortages. ... Older adults now have the option of a home health aide, assisted living facilities and family caregivers.Editor's Note: How is this trend playing out in your service area? How do these closures impact your referral sources? Your hospice patients in skilled nursing facilities and memory care units? Accuity of patient care needs in the home, assisted living?  Hospital-in-the-home? The palliative care services you provide?

If you love the work you are doing, then you will love Tuesday! - Catherine Pulsifer

AI-generated draft replies integrated into health records and physicians’ electronic communication JAMA Network; by Ming Tai-Seale, PhD, MPH; Sally L. Baxter, MD, MSc; Florin Vaida, PhD; et al; 4/15/24Objective: To investigate the association between GenAI-drafted replies for patient messages and physician time spent on answering messages and the length of replies.Conclusions and Relevance: In this QI study, GenAI-drafted replies were associated with significantly increased read time, no change in reply time, significantly increased reply length, and some perceived benefits. 

Hospice of the Red River Valley celebrates milestone in Heather's House constructionInforum, Fargo, ND; by Michael McGurran; 4/19/24An important milestone for a first-of-its-kind Hospice facility in North Dakota, a dream project literally decades in the making. It was just two years ago that staff broke ground on the ambitious project. Heather's House will serve as a "hospital in disguise," a place with 18 beds where family and loved ones can spend their final time together in comfort, rather than in a hospital. It's all fully funded by donors. "You brought to life, a 25-year dream for this community," Hospice of the Red River Valley Executive Director Tracee Caprol told a crowd of donors on Friday, April 19. "Twenty-five years. You have the hearts, that compassion, the empathy, and a deep seated understanding of the needs of others."

Telehealth Accreditation Program The Joint Commission; 4/20/24The Joint Commission has developed a new Telehealth accreditation program (TEL) that will be effective July 1, 2024. This program is intended for health care organizations that exclusively provide care, treatment, and services via telehealth and for health care organizations that provide services via telehealth to another organization’s patients.

Black patients with ovarian cancer had lower-quality end-of-life care, study says American Journal of Managed Care (AJMC), by Brooke McCormick; 4/21/24 Non-Hispanic Black (NHB) patients with ovarian cancer (OC) received lower-quality end-of-life (EOL) care than non-Hispanic White (NHW) patients, according to a study published in Cancer Research Communications. ... Although trends and disparities in EOL care among patients with OC are well documented, the researchers noted that the role of health care access (HCA) in quality EOL care has not been well characterized; HCA is comprised of 5 distinct, interrelated care access dimensions, namely affordability, availability, accessibility, accommodation, and acceptability. 

Man forces himself inside home, robs 2 women, including hospice patient, at gunpoint in north St. Louis NBC 5, St. Louis; by Calrissa Cowley; 4/19/24 The victim in hospice care was unable to move on her own or call the police during the ordeal. A man is facing charges three days after forcing his way into a north St. Louis home and robbing two 60-year-old women, one of whom was in hospice care, at gunpoint. St. Louis prosecutors charged 46-year-old Ronnie Jackson on Thursday with one count of first-degree robbery, one count of burglary, one count of kidnapping and three counts of armed criminal action. Each charge is a felony.

$1 billion class action settlement will trigger transition of 2,400 nursing home residents to other settingsMcKnights Senior LIving, by Kimberly Bonvissuto; 4/19/24The $1 billion settlement of a class action lawsuit has the potential to see 2,400 Massachusetts nursing home residents move into other residential and community settings in the next decade. The options include assisted living communities, although state senior living experts say that it’s unlikely many of those transitions will be to assisted living. The state agreed to settle the suit, initially filed in 2022 by six disabled nursing homes residents who argued that a lack of state resources “trapped” them in nursing homes despite their wishes to return to community-based care settings.

Healthcare still underprepared for scope of cyber threats, says Kroll reportHealthcare IT News, by Andrea Fox; 4/17/24Healthcare is the industry that's most likely to self-assess as having "very mature security," according to a new cyber readiness report from Kroll. But it's also one of the most-breached sectors – topping the list in 2022 and coming in second this past year. That discrepancy can be traced to many factors – not least the fact that healthcare organizations have long been among the top targets of cybercriminals and bad actors.

Connecticut home care safety bill would create administrative burdens, hospices sayMcKnights Home Care, by Adam Healy; 4/19/24 Some hospices are fighting to be carved out of a Connecticut state bill that would impose stricter safety policies for home-based healthcare providers. The legislation’s burdensome administrative requirements could affect patient care, they argue. ...  The bill’s introduction comes only months after a visiting nurse was killed on the job while providing care through a Connecticut home care agency. ... By the time a hospice could produce background checks and safety reports for a client, it may be too late to provide effective treatment, according to Barbara Pearce, chief executive officer of Connecticut Hospice.Editor's Note: For more information, see the articles we posted on 

The Green Wave: Medical marijuana patient enrollment grew 610% since 2016 InvestingDaily, by John Persinos; 4/18/24 The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), and the University of Michigan recently issued a report about a staggering surge in enrollment in state-sanctioned medical marijuana programs across the nation. The report was published last week by the journal Annals of Internal Medicine. Between 2016 and 2020, the number of patients enrolled in medical marijuana programs in the U.S. grew “dramatically,” the report says, rising from about 678,000 in 2016 to more than 3 million in 2020. “This analysis indicates a 610% increase in patient number in the United States from 2016 to 2022,” the report states.