Literature Review

Carolina Caring empowers hospice patient to revisit favorite pastimeMcDowell (NC) News, 12/22/23Carolina Caring’s compassionate hospice and palliative care empowers patients to make the most of each day as they navigate serious illness. Our patient, Barbara, has been under hospice care with Carolina Caring and has shared much about her life with her favorite Nurse, Kelly Avery, and Social Worker, Megan Elmore. She shared that her fondest memories were of fishing with her family on Lake Hickory. ... Avery and Elmore coordinated with the Carolina Caring Volunteer and Foundation Departments to secure fishing licenses and gather together a spread of Barbara’s favorite foods at Dallas Park & Recreation ponds.

La Marque man engineered iconic Tree of LightsGalveston (TX) Daily News, 12/23/23Hospice Care Team’s Tree of Lights has illuminated the island’s holiday skyline from atop The Daily News’ building for more than 30 years, but the story of how it came to be often isn’t explored. Back in 1989, Hospice Care Team, a nonprofit that provides hospice services without regard to client’s ability to pay, was looking to establish a fundraiser and came up with the idea of creating a Tree of Lights, on which donors could purchase bulbs to honor someone’s life. Great idea, but how to accomplish that? Enter Stanley Duitscher, who owned D Engineers Inc. in La Marque. ... “We had to be able to lower the tree when it’s not in service,” Duitscher, 91, recalled this week. “So, I incorporated a boat lift with a cable to raise it and lower it.” The tree is pretty much a ship’s mast with strands of lights draped off the top in the shape of a pine tree. The tree also had to be designed so that it would lie flat when not being used, so as not to be damaged by storms or even struck by lightning. His daughter, Minda Scherer, said his design fee was probably pretty reasonable. “He thinks he did it for charity, because he can’t find an invoice for the work,” she said.

Give one person a compliment today. Tomorrow, only if feeling wild abandon, give two.

Hospice office still has holiday cheer after real-life GrinchWRDW-TV (Augusta, GA), 12/22/23Augusta, GA—Someone stole a Christmas tree from the lawn of the Affinis Hospice office on Walton Way. They moved into this location in November, and since they had a nice front lawn, they decided to spread Christmas cheer into their new neighborhood. “We were really excited to put the Santa Claus out there. We had a tree we had all sorts of, but we even decorated the tree with ornaments and lights,” said Community Care Liaison for Affinis Hospice, Sara Simmons. They put up everything on Friday. The tree didn’t even last for a weekend. “We came in Monday morning, and our tree was gone. So somebody swiped the tree,” said Simmons. She said that evidence around the scene showed the tree was stolen. “I was furious,” Simmons said. “We put so much into getting these decorations, and we were so excited to be in this brand new neighborhood, new area and somebody took our tree.” ... “We thought if somebody else needed that tree, maybe there’s others who also need trees,” she said. They’ve been working as a middleman to get people whatever they need to brighten their holiday season. “If people have extra trees, which they were already offering to us, you’re welcome to bring them here. And then we’ll advertise and let other people know ‘Hey, you’re welcome to come here and get whatever you need.’ We’re here for you,” she said.

HomeCare & Hospice’s move into Motherhouse a promising partnershipOlean (NY) Times Herald, 12/21/23Allegany, NY—The association of Community Care of Western New York and the Franciscan Sisters of Allegany will grow even closer after Christmas when HomeCare & Hospice resumes its operations at the St. Elizabeth Motherhouse.

A broken immigration system keeps workers out of jobs the U.S. needs to fillWashington Post, 12/21/23Bismarck, ND - North Dakota’s hospitals are desperate for nurses, but backlogs and other problems in immigration agencies block the way. The leaders of Sanford Medical Center had waited all summer to learn the fate of the 59 nurses planning to move across the world to their isolated state capital. The reinforcements from the Philippines, Kenya and Nigeria would allow the hospital to expand its heart unit and staff a new wing. Costly temporary nurses would go. The scramble to fill shifts would finally be over. But by the time the hospital’s department heads gathered in a conference room this fall to hear the latest development, the news already had spread. The nurses were delayed—again.

Following failed merger, Putnam’s Day Kimball sells home-care business to Cheshire firmCT Insider, 12/22/23Cheshire, CT—Putnam’s Day Kimball Healthcare sold its home-health division to Cheshire-based Assisted Living Services Inc., the companies announced on Thursday. The approximately 150 clients of Day Kimball Homemakers have been transferred and all of the 25 workers have been offered jobs at Assisted Living Services.

The Corvallis group singing by the bedsides of the dying and grievingCorvallis (OR) Gazette-Times, 12/23/23Nearing the end of a long career as an educator at Corvallis’ Garfield Elementary, Susan Breckenridge began searching for post-retirement activities that she could do with others and still be in service to her community. Around this time, a friend who played the harp for a hospice organization told her about the Threshold Choir. Breckenridge had never heard about it before, but that evening she went online to read about the group. The volunteers sing at the bedsides of the dying and grieving, to be a source of comfort. “I was like, that’s it! That’s what I’ve been looking for: something that I can be in service to others and use my singing voice,” Breckenridge said on a Zoom call. Now-retired physician David Grube said he’d first learned about the choir while attending a “compassion and choices” lecture in Portland.

Family Caregivers Far Prefer Hospital At Home Over Brick-And-Mortar AlternativeHome Health Care News, 12/22/23The hospital-at-home model can help alleviate caregiver stress, and that could be one of the model’s main selling points moving forward. The evidence behind that is from a new DispatchHealth case study, which explored caregiver fatigue within the hospital-at-home model by asking, “Does this innovative care model alleviate or exacerbate caregiver stress?” The results were encouraging, Kevin Riddleberger—the co-founder and chief strategy officer of DispatchHealth—told Home Health Care News. ... An overwhelming majority (95%) of respondents preferred in-home care over the traditional hospital setting, with 68% saying they had a strong preference for hospital-level care in the home. The other 5% selected hospital-based care as their preference. An almost identical number of caregivers—96%—found in-home care less stressful than a previous in-patient hospital experience.

God’s work—West Virginia Caring plans Morgantown hospice centerDominion Post (Morgantown, WV), 12/23/23Morgantown, WV—There’s a big brick building at 501 Van Voorhis Road—48,000 square feet or so shaped like a giant H. The sign above the front door says “Friendship Manor.” Malene Davis calls it “The building God picked out.” You see, Davis has spent the last 30-plus years working in hospice care. These days, the registered nurse serves as the president and CEO of West Virginia Caring, formerly Hospice Care Corp., which serves 12 counties—basically covering everything from Flatwoods, north.

Assisted dying Scotland—Sir Keir Starmer backs call for change in law as Dame Esther Rantzen champions moveThe Scotsman (Edinburgh, Scotland), 12/22/23Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has backed calls for a change in the law on assisted dying. The cause has been championed by Dame Esther Rantzen, who has called for politicians to grapple with the issue for the first time since 2015. The 83-year-old Childline founder and broadcaster has stage four lung cancer and earlier this week said she has joined the assisted dying clinic Dignitas. The Labour leader, who backed a change in the law the last time the issue was voted on in the Commons in 2015, acknowledged it would have to be addressed carefully.

Baptist Health eliminates leadership positionsSouth Florida Business Journal, 12/21/23Baptist Health South Florida eliminated 190 leadership and non-clinical positions through voluntary separation and other labor reduction measures in recent months, according to the health system’s report to bond investors. The Miami-based nonprofit, the largest hospital operator in South Florida, filed its report for the fiscal year ended Sept. 30.

Chatty robot helps seniors fight loneliness through AI companionshipAssociated Press/Washington Post, 12/22/23Coral Springs, FL—Joyce Loaiza lives alone, but when she returns to her apartment at a Florida senior community, the retired office worker often has a chat with a friendly female voice that asks about her day. A few miles away, the same voice comforted 83-year-old Deanna Dezern when her friend died. In central New York, it plays games and music for 92-year-old Marie Broadbent, who is blind and in hospice, and in Washington state, it helps 83-year-old Jan Worrell make new friends. The women are some of the first in the country to receive the robot ElliQ, whose creators, Intuition Robotics, and senior assistance officials say is the only device using artificial intelligence specifically designed to alleviate the loneliness and isolation experienced by many older Americans. “It’s entertaining. You can actually talk to her,” said Loaiza, 81, whose ElliQ in suburban Fort Lauderdale nicknamed her “Jellybean” for no particular reason.