Literature Review

'An alarm bell': Los Alamos Visiting Nurse Service shutters amid turmoil for home health care Santa Fe New Mexican; Santa Fe, NM; by Margaret O'Hara; 2/16/26 A home health and hospice agency that has been serving Los Alamos and Rio Arriba counties for more than 50 years will shutter later this month, a closure agency officials attributed to decreasing revenue from patient insurance and sharply rising health care costs. Los Alamos Visiting Nurse Service will halt operations Friday. The loss should serve as a warning, said Meggin Lorino, executive director of the New Mexico Association for Home and Hospice Care. The decision to shutter Los Alamos Visiting Nurses comes as rural health care providers grapple with an abundance of challenges, which range from operating on razor-thin financial margins to impending cuts to Medicaid to the added pressures of the state’s aging population.Editor's Note: This provides further information to the article we posted 2/13/26, "Los Alamos Visiting Nurse Service closing its doors but other options are available to those in need."

Geographic and sociodemographic disparities in access to hospice in Pennsylvania American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Medicine; by Jacob Whitman, PhD, Dylan Nagy, MS, Harsheni Sudakar, BSPH, Coleman Drake, PhD, Lindsay Sabik, PhD, and Yael Schenker; 2/14/26 online ahead of print Results: In total, 2.3 million Pennsylvanians, or 17% of the state population, reside in census tracts classified as cold spots. Cold spots were concentrated in rural and socioeconomically disadvantaged regions. Compared with other tracts, cold spot tracts were lower income, less educated, older, more reliant on public insurance, and less racially diverse. Patterns were consistent when restricting to high quality hospice and nonprofit hospices. Conclusion: Geographic disparities in hospice access compound existing sociodemographic inequities. Addressing these inequities will require efforts to expand high-quality hospice availability in underserved communities.

'My wedding dress funded care for dying children' BBC News, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom; by Grace Wood; 2/14/26 As any bride-to-be knows, wedding dresses can come at a terrifying cost, with the average price sitting at around £1,500. But at one specialist charity shop in West Yorkshire brides can not only pick up a dress at a fraction of the cost, but also give something back. Situated on the top floor of the Forget Me Not Children's Hospice store in Huddersfield, Holmfirth Bridal Suite is not your normal charity shop. Instead of the usual array of second-hand clothes the rails are lined with hundreds of pre-loved or donated wedding dresses. ... "Your average wedding dress is thousands of [dollars] and you wear it for one day, and then it goes in a box, and thankfully people are donating them here to be able to sell on and make more money for the hospice" ...

Psychosocial oncology: The Omega Project Taylor & Francis | Death Studies; by Matthew Loscalzo and Linda A. Klein; 2/14/26This article reports on an interview with J. William Worden that focuses initially on the Omega Project (1968–1986) that studied end-of-life care. Worden explains the four phases of the project with specific populations, goals, and key concepts that emerged. The discussion then shifts to the development of psychosocial oncology and palliative care. Finally, Worden offers some thoughts on the development of the hospice movement in the United States, the role of religion in coping with mortality, coping with personal loss, and his advice to new medical or graduate students just starting out.

What can we learn from death in the age of longevity? Time; by Arianna Huffington; 2/16/26 ... Research on those at the end of life shows that our values change as death approaches. At the end, we don’t crave more status or more things, but more connection. A study on terminally ill patients found that common reflections include concern for loved ones, gratitude, and spirituality. Another found that the most commonly discussed topics included accepting one's imperfections, celebrating and appreciating what you have, giving, and service to others. And a study of hospice patients found that they showed “the desire to grow and change at this critical time.” If hospice patients can grow and change at the end of life, why not grow and change now? ... It is a surprising, but important, lesson to learn: bringing death into our lives is what paradoxically allows us to live more fully.  

Aveanna CEO: Hospice multiples still too high Hospice News; by Jim Parker; 2/13/26 As Aveanna Healthcare Holdings considers potential acquisitions, hospices are not on the menu due to their high price tags. Hospice multiples skyrocketed during the boom M&A years of 2019 through 2022, reaching as high a 26x, sometimes more. As transactions slowed down between 2023 and 2025, one contributing factor was a disconnect between sellers’ and buyers’ expectations regarding valuations. Now hospice deals are picking up steam. The fourth quarter of 2025 saw the industry’s highest deal volume since 2021, and one reason is that sellers’ and buyers’ expectations are becoming more aligned. However, this trend hasn’t yet gone far enough, according to Aveanna CEO Jeff Shaner. “[Hospice multiples] are all north of 10x. ..."

Hospice fundraiser exceeds expectations The Hawk Eye, Keokuk, IA; by John Gaines; 2/13/26 The SCC Men’s Basketball saw a large crowd in support of the Pack the Gym in Pink fundraiser for the Southeast Iowa Regional Hospice Monday night at Loren Walker Arena. The team had a big night with a 100-97 overtime win against Illinois Central College and the fundraiser also saw big numbers. The event raised $11,600. “That’s going to be a banner year for us,” said Trina Tucker Hospice volunteer coordinator. ...  There were 84 silent auction baskets, [along with] raffles, colorful pink swag, and people gave a free will donation to attend the game to add to the total money raised.

The global need for paediatric palliative care: the evolution of serious health-related suffering in children aged 0-19 years from 1990 to 2023 The Lancet - Child & Adolescent Health; by Julia Downing, Felicia Marie Knaul, Xiaoxiao Jiang Kwete, Héctor Arreola-Ornelas, Nickhill Bhakta, William E Rosa, Lukas Radbruch, Julia Ambler, Stephen R Connor, Jinfeng Ding, Megan Doherty, Rui Gong, Richard Hain, Rut Kiman, Eric L Krakauer, Michael J McNeil, Oscar Méndez-Carniado, Marina Morais, Mary Ann Muckaden, Tania Pastrana, Marianne Phillips, Hongliang Tao, Michael Touchton, Valentina Vargas Enciso, Paul Vila, Afsan Bhadelia; online ahead of print March 2026 Our findings underscore the crucial need to expand access to high-quality palliative care services for children and adolescents, particularly in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs). Our results also highlight the shift from decedent to non-decedent care needs associated with the substantial morbidity experienced by those living with their disease. Specific health-system policies to respond to the need for increased and higher-quality paediatric palliative care, especially interventions and medicines essential to address the unique palliative care needs of children, must be adequately funded to effectively reduce the avoidable burden of serious health-related suffering (SHS) among children.

Hospice of Wichita Falls: Photos capture community supporting patients by donating blood Times Record News; by Naomi Skinner; 2/12/26 ... Donable Cares partnered with Hospice of Wichita Falls to host a community blood drive on Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026. A portion of the donations will go to support cancer patients. ...

‘This place is love’: A prison unit for the dying — in pictures Prison Journalism Project; by Carla Canning and Eddie Herena; 2/11/26 California Medical Facility’s hospice program aims to ensure no one dies alone. In 1996, a 17-bed, state-licensed hospice began caring for dying incarcerated men at California Medical Facility in Vacaville, ... At that time, the hospice unit mainly took care of patients dying of AIDS. Today, many of the patients housed there are dying of cancer, the leading cause of death in U.S. prisons. In June 2024, I visited the hospice unit on a reporting trip, along with Eddie Herena, a former  staff photographer for ... a prison in the Bay Area. We were there to understand what it was like to receive a terminal diagnosis while in prison. 

[United Kingdom] Valentine's Day dip raises £40,000 for hospice BBC News, Felixstowe, England, United Kingdom; by Jenny Kirk and Sharique Ahmed; 2/14/26 About 200 people have braved the winter temperatures and run into the North Sea off the Suffolk Coast, in aid of a local hospice. Felixstowe's rescheduled Christmas Day sea dip, for St Elizabeth Hospice in Ipswich, took place on the morning of Valentine's Day after originally being cancelled by bad weather. Ellie Main, from the hospice, called the dip a "local tradition" for the region, adding that a "significant" £40,000 had been raised so far. Emma and Gary came along with 10-year-old Millie from Ipswich, for their first winter dip. The family said they were "excited" and hoped to support the hospice that had cared for some family members.Editor's Note: While I surely love hospice, this show of love is more than I would be able to muster. For perspective, Felixstowe's geographical latitude is about the same as Calgary, Canada: Cold. 

Medical Aid in Dying and our ethical duties—Call to actionJAMA Health Forum; by Yesne Alici, Liz Blackler, Julia Danielle Kulikowski, Amy Scharf; 1/26Medical aid in dying (MAID) is legal in 11 US states and Washington, DC, and is being actively considered in 18 additional states ... In all jurisdictions where MAID is legal, hospital systems have the option to opt out of providing MAID services but are legally obligated to share information about where patients can access resources. We maintain that all hospital systems and individual clinicians have an ethical responsibility to go beyond simply sharing information. Patients are going to ask about MAID, and institutions are ethically obligated to establish comprehensive policies that empower and encourage their clinical staffs—primarily physicians but also nurses and advanced practice clinicians—to purposefully and thoughtfully respond. Here, we describe the experience of our institution, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK), in developing policies and procedures to fulfill this responsibility and highlight lessons for other health care organizations and oncology practices seeking to accomplish similar goals.