Literature Review

Vitas Healthcare names four leaders to its executive team: Melad, Escueta, Dr. Loftis, DurkinInvestorsObserver; 5/13/24Vitas Healthcare proudly announces the addition of four new leaders to its executive management team, including the promotions of Jennifer Melad, Martin Escueta and Lauren Loftis, MD. The hospice company also welcomes Vicky Durkin as its latest newly hired executive. Healthcare proudly announces the addition of four new leaders to its executive management team, including the promotions of Jennifer Melad, Martin Escueta and Lauren Loftis, MD. The hospice company also welcomes Vicky Durkin as its latest newly hired executive. 

Nurse Practitioner care, scope of practice, and end-of-life outcomes for nursing home residents with dementia JAMA Health Forum - JAMA Network; by Cyrus M. Kosar, PhD; Bishnu B. Thapa, MPA, PhD; Ulrike Muench, RN, PhD; Christopher Santostefano, RN, MPH; Emily A. Gadbois, PhD; Hyesung Oh, MA, MBA; Pedro L. Gozalo, PhD; Momotazur Rahman, PhD; Elizabeth M. White, APRN, PhD; 5/10/24 Question: Is nurse practitioner (NP) care associated with end-of-life outcomes for nursing home residents with Alzheimer disease and related dementias (ADRD), and do these associations differ between states with full vs restrictive NP scope of practice regulations? Findings: The results of this cohort study including 334 618 US nursing home residents with ADRD indicated that decedents with greater NP involvement at end of life had fewer hospitalizations and higher hospice use. The adjusted differences in outcomes between decedents with extensive vs minimal NP care were larger in states with full scope of practice regulations than in states with restrictive regulations.

Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley and activist Denella Clark join forces to help women giving care to terminally ill loved ones MSN / The Boston Globe; by Adrian Walker; 5/11/24  Ayanna Pressley and Denella James Clark are sisters in a sorority no one wants to join. The congresswoman and the educator-activist are both women who have lost their mothers. Or, more precisely, women who have shared the experience of being principal caregivers to mothers who are terminally ill. ... As they supported each other in the process of grieving, Pressley and Clark thought of the many people — especially the many women — who act as caregivers to their loved ones in the final stages of their lives. So this Mother’s Day Weekend they are launching the Pressley-James Lovin’ Gestures Fund, which will provide financial help to people providing care to terminally ill close relatives. ...

Planning ahead: How Medicare services at home differ from at-home Medicaid The Mercury; by Janet Colliton; 5/10/24 When asked how they would like to receive long-term care services many consumers, probably most, indicate they would like to receive them at home. Expectations for extensive help at home with government support often exceed what is available and this, considering shortages in available health care workers and limited funding is likely to continue. However, knowing the differences between what is offered under Medicare versus Medicaid is extremely helpful. ... [Click on the title's link for practical, user-friendly descriptions of Medicare versus Medicaid at home, for short term rehab, hospice, and more.] 

At age 99, Jimmy Carter is still exercising his right to vote Story by CNN and Atlanta News First; 5/10/24 Former President Jimmy Carter, age 99, is still exercising his right to vote. Carter’s grandson, Jason Carter, said the nation’s 39th president cast a mail-in ballot this week for the May 21 Georgia primary, emphasizing his grandfather is not going to miss an election. The former president entered hospice care more than a year ago in his hometown of Plains, Georgia. Since then he celebrated his 99th birthday last October and attended the annual Peanut Festival, which celebrates the region’s cash crop. He also mourned the loss of his wife, Rosalynn Carter, who died in November at the age of 96. To date, that has been Jimmy Carter’s last public appearance. 

VA expands burial benefits for veterans VFW - Veterans of Foreign Wars; by Dave Spiva; 5/10/24The VA last year announced new burial allowance rates for veterans who have died in nonservice-related incidents since October. ... For nonservice-related deaths, VA will pay a $948 burial allowance and $948 for a plot if the veteran died on or after Oct. 1, 2023. If the veteran died between Jan. 5, 2023, and Oct. 1, 2023, VA would pay an $893 burial allowance and $893 for a plot. Learn more about allowance rates at https://www.va.gov/burials-memorials/veterans-burial-allowance.

Can virtual reality help ease the end of life? MDLinx; Originally published on Université de Montréal News; 5/10/24 A sunny beach under an azure sky in Mexico, a bustling market in Reykjavik, a sparkling lake in Quebec’s Laurentians, a string quartet playing Bach… What if we could offer individuals in palliative care a whole range of peaceful, familiar or exhilarating experiences that they could enjoy from the comfort of their chair? What if such experiences could not only allow them to travel, discover, explore and relax, but also decrease their anxiety and physical pain? Neuropsychologist Jhon Alexander Moreno, a professor in Université de Montréal’s Department of Psychology and a researcher at the Montreal University Institute of Geriatrics Research Centre, decided to take up the challenge.

Event raises $47,000 for Tillery Compassionate Care

Impact of implementing serious illness conversations across a comprehensive cancer center using an interdisciplinary approach The American Journal of Hospice & Palliative Care; by Karen Guo, Garrett Wasp, Maxwell Vergo, Matthew Wilson, Megan M Holthoff, Madge E Buus-Frank, James J Perry, Amelia M Cullinan; 5/10/24Objectives: (1) Increase Serious Illness Conversation (SIC) use across oncology teams via an interdisciplinary quality improvement (QI) approach and (2) assess patient reported shared decision making (SDM) experiences with clinicians engaged in SIC implementation.Results: Oncology teams screened a total of 538 patients, identified 278 eligible patients, and completed 144 SIC conversations. The teams improved the proportion of documented SIC among eligible patients from near 0% to a collective frequency of 52%.

Volunteering in hospice helps Macalester students contemplate death's mysteries up close MSN - Minneapolis Star Tribune; by Katy Read; 5/10/24 "You think it will never happen to you, that it cannot happen to you, that you are the only person in the world to whom none of these things will ever happen," author Paul Auster wrote about humans' difficulty confronting our own mortality. ... Auster himself died last month at age 77. ... How can humans fully grasp the inevitability of our own death? It's a tough question to answer, maybe close to impossible. Three Macalester College students who just finished a course called the Anthropology of Death and Dying don't have the answer. Their professor, who has spent much of his career studying death as an anthropologist and a former hospice nurse, doesn't have an answer. A hospice nurse doesn't have the answer. And a hospice patient with lung cancer doesn't have the answer, even knowing he soon will confront its reality firsthand.

What nurses really need is better staffing: The common strategies to raise nurse morale need an updatePenn LDI - Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics; by Karen Lasater, PhD, RN, and Jane Muir, PhD, APRN; 5/10/24Pizza. Coloring books. Goody bags. They could be activities at a 5-year-old’s birthday party. But they’re not: These are many employers’ attempts to lift the morale of nurses on the frontlines of chronically understaffed organizations. What nurses really want are better working conditions so they can deliver the best care possible to their patients. As researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, we asked thousands of nurses why they are leaving their profession. Their answers are straightforward — short staffing is so rampant that the public’s health care is at risk. The playbook of corporate health care asks nurses to do much with little, but nurses aren’t willing to skimp on quality and safety. There isn’t a nursing shortage — it’s nurses’ refusal to be part of a system that puts profits before safety.

He thinks his wife died in an understaffed hospital. Now he’s trying to change the industry.Fortune; by KFF Health News and Kate Wells; 4/19/24For the past year, police Detective Tim Lillard has spent most of his waking hours unofficially investigating his wife’s death. The question has never been exactly how Ann Picha-Lillard died on Nov. 19, 2022: She succumbed to respiratory failure after an infection put too much strain on her weakened lungs. She was 65. For Tim Lillard, the question has been why.Publisher's Note: We often discuss workforce shortages in terms of staff stress. This interesting and heartbreaking story explores workforce shortages in terms of patient harm.

Chesapeake Life Center offers monthly LGBTQIA+ drop-in grief support group Southern Maryland News Net; 5/6/24 Chesapeake Life Center will host a monthly drop-in grief support group for members of the LGBTQIA+ community. ... Grief is a hard and vulnerable time, and it is important to have safe spaces to process what we are going through. This group is intended for adult members of the LGBTQIA+ community who are grieving a past or approaching death. The group will be facilitated by a licensed queer therapist but will be loosely structured to offer an opportunity for participants to share their feelings and grieve with community.Editor's Note: Hospice & Palliative Care Today does not post upcoming, local hospice events, grief support groups, volunteer trainings, etc. However, we're posting this LGBTQIA+ grief support ("past or approaching death") due to its profound need and support, with opportunities for replication by other hospices. Pair this support with the article we posted on 4/21/24: LGBTQ+ individuals have higher rates of cancer because of disparities in modifiable risk factors, ACS says.