Literature Review

Nonprofit repurposes wedding bouquets for seniors Spectrum News 1, Columbus, OH; by Taylor Bruck; 10/21/24 Todd Davis, a resident of Columbus, knows it’s the simple things in life that mean the most. That’s why every weekend, he and volunteers pick up leftover flowers from weddings and other events and repurpose them into beautiful bouquets. They then deliver them to senior citizens all over Columbus and people in hospice care. ... Every week, volunteers turn thousands of flowers into about 200 bouquets, equating to nearly 10,000 this year and endless smiles.

Southern Tier Health helps HomeCare & Hospice, Total Senior Care on USDA grant Olean Times Herald, Olean, NY; by Kellen M. Quigley; 10/22/24 A collaboration between three local agencies looking out for the health and well-being of their clients is getting a modern technological boost thanks to a federal grant. The Southern Tier Health Care System, Inc. (STHCS) was recently awarded nearly $140,000 through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development Rural Utilities Service Distance Learning and Telemedicine Grant Program. This funding is meant to empower rural communities by leveraging advanced technology to connect residents and healthcare providers, overcoming the challenges of distance and low population density. Of the total grant, $114,606.80 was allocated to HomeCare & Hospice and Total Senior Care for state-of-the-art digital communication and remote learning tools, including high-definition displays, advanced cameras and integrated audio systems.

Palliative care access for indigenous populations: Removing barriers and reducing disparities ECRI, Plymouth Meeting, PA; by Eileen Cornish; 10/22/24 ... Indigenous populations across North America face barriers to healthcare due to a combination of historical, social, economic, and systemic factors. Key barriers include historical trauma and distrust, remote or rural geography, economic disparities, cultural differences, systemic racism, and discrimination.  ... For this topic, ECRI librarians identified 35 studies, including six systematic reviews, that discuss barriers to palliative care for Indigenous people across North America. ...  Removing Barriers: Here are several key takeaways from the studies we identified. Other barriers are likely exist; however, these common themes emerged from the studies identified in ECRI’s review.

[In case you missed it] The HOPE Assessment Tool: What you need to know [free webinar by CHAP]Community Health Accreditation Partner (CHAP); 10/21/24 On October 16, 2024, we hosted a webinar on the upcoming implementation of the HOPE Assessment Tool, which will catalyze hospice care starting in 2025. The webinar provided valuable insights into the tool’s implementation, content highlights, and its anticipated impact on hospice program operations. During the session, participants asked numerous important questions, many of which we’ve compiled into this FAQ for further clarification. Access the recorded session and handouts if you missed it or would like to review the presentation.

Leveraging sales strategies in hospice payment cap management Hospice News; by Jim Parker; 10/22/24 Errors or other inconsistencies with the payment cap can have significant consequences for providers, and sales and marketing staff can help hospices achieve a healthy balance. The cap is designed to prevent overuse of hospice, put controls on Medicare spending and foster greater access to care among patients. For Fiscal Year 2024, the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services set the cap at $33,394. In 2025, this will rise to $34,465. If a hospice has a cap liability, they will have to repay that amount to Medicare. In some situations, a hospice might face additional monetary penalties, interest charges or referrals to the U.S. Treasury Department in severe cases.

Enhabit Home Health & Hospice Becomes Age-Friendly Health Systems participant HomeCare, Dallas, TX; 10/21/24 Enhabit Inc., a home health and hospice provider, announced it has been recognized by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) as an Age-Friendly Health Systems participant. The Age-Friendly Health Systems is an initiative of the John A. Hartford Foundation and the IHI, in partnership with the American Hospital Association and the Catholic Health Association of the United States. The Age-Friendly Health Systems aims to follow a set of evidence-based practices, cause no harm and align with what matters to the older adult and their family caregivers. Age-Friendly Health Systems participants are recognized for aiming to become an Age-Friendly Health System and have submitted examples of how they put four elements of care—the “4Ms”—into practice with older patients. ...

Hockey team helps with Hotcakes for Hospice at Oswego Elks Lodge Oswego County News Now, Oswego, NY; by Lauren Royce; 10/20/24 People poured into the Elks Lodge on West Fifth Street in Oswego Sunday morning, happy to buy a breakfast and enjoy some pancakes, eggs, bacon and other staples with friends and family. It was all for a good cause. The Friends of Hospice in Oswego County (FOHOC) hosted its sixth annual Hotcakes for Hospice breakfast with the help of the SUNY Oswego men's hockey team. For head coach Ed Gosek, it is a way to give back to the community while honoring the memory of his wife, Mary, who died in hospice care in 2017. ... The Lakers were outside holding signs by Bridge Street and inside helping serve food and clean tables for guests. ... Elena Twiss, executive director of FOHOC, said that bringing in the hockey team was a great way to bring the community together, and that the players and coaches have been a valuable resource all six years they've helped out.

The powerful companies driving local drugstores out of business DNYUZ; 10/19/24 The small-town drugstore closed for the last time on a clear and chilly afternoon in February. Jon Jacobs, who owned Yough Valley Pharmacy, hugged his employees goodbye. He cleared the shelves and packed pill bottles into plastic bins. Mr. Jacobs, a 70-year-old pharmacist, had spent more than half his life building his drugstore into a bedrock of Confluence, Pa., a rural community of roughly 1,000 people. Now the town was losing its only health care provider. Obscure but powerful health care middlemen — companies known as pharmacy benefit managers, or P.B.M.s — had destroyed his business. This has been happening all over the country, a New York Times investigation found. P.B.M.s, which employers and government programs hire to oversee prescription drug benefits, have been systematically underpaying small pharmacies, helping to drive hundreds out of business.

In memoriam: Dr. Robert TwycrossIAHPC press release; 10/21/24The International Association for Hospice & Palliative Care (IAHPC) mourns the death of Dr. Robert Twycross, an outstanding pioneer of the global palliative care movement. A lifetime member of the IAHPC, Dr. Twycross made a significant contribution to the IAHPC List of Essential Medicines, developed years before the World Health Organization added a special section for essential medicines for pain relief and palliative care. Dr. Twycross was born on January 29, 1941, and died yesterday, October 22nd, 2024. He was a pioneer of the hospice movement, helping to establish palliative care in the 1970s as an accepted field of modern medicine.

Millennials are reporting a mysterious wave of memory problems. What’s going on? Globe Magazine, Boston, MA; by Felice J. Freyer; 10/21/24 ... Memory lapses are expected as we age, but there’s evidence that many younger people — in the prime of life, ages 20 to 50 — are losing their grip on thoughts, struggling to retain new information and retrieve old knowledge. Experts blame the way we live and the world we live in, abuzz with distracting technologies amid endless demands on our time and minds. Dr. Andrew E. Budson, a Boston University neurologist who specializes in memory disorders in older adults, runs into younger people whenever he gives a talk. Inevitably, someone in their 30s or 40s will approach him afterward with: My memory is terrible. . . . I know I’m young, but I’m concerned I’m getting Alzheimer’s disease. ... [Click on the title's link to continue reading.]

Florida health system rolls out virtual nursing tech to 1K rooms Becker's Health IT; by Giles Bruce; 10/17/24 Fort Myers, Fla.-based Lee Health is expanding virtual nursing technology to nearly 1,000 patient rooms, representing about half its beds. The four-hospital system is rolling out dual-camera virtual care devices from telehealth company Caregility to scale its virtual nurse offering. The remote fleet management tools come with artificial intelligence capabilities and cloud-based updates. "Our virtual nursing program introduces innovative possibilities in patient care workflows by connecting the care in the complex patient journey," Lee Health Chief Nursing Officer Jennifer Higgins, DNP, RN, said in an Oct. 16 statement. "From admissions and discharges to continuous patient monitoring, patients benefit from an additional team member dedicated to their care."

A simple question changed how I saw my daughter’s life Newsweek Life; by Nikki Moberly; 10/20/24 When my daughter was born almost 24 years ago, not only did I begin my journey as a first-time parent, I embarked on an odyssey that nobody could have prepared me for. This little girl with the face and disposition of an angel was born with a devastating condition, diagnosed at two-and-a-half months old with Aicardi Syndrome. ...  The first years of her life were laser-focused on learning more about her rare condition, symptom stabilization, medication adjustments, therapists, and doctor's appointments. Erin was eligible for early intervention services allowing her to go to school at age three. ... For one of those interviews, the social worker came to my home for us to complete Erin's "student profile" card. I was about to learn the power of a well-placed question. She started by simply asking: "What are Erin's strengths?" ... [Click on the title's link to continue this mother's journey through her daughter's life and death.]

Poetry, again, confronts death JAMA; by Rafael CAmpo, MD, MA; 10/16/24Poetry can help physicians in many ways at the border between life and death. Though we might think first of the consoling power of elegy in confronting mortality, other poems, like “Again,” [referenced] aid us in wrestling with what death is in the first place—and are even more useful when research falls short in attempting to demystify it. One such scientific controversy surrounds in-hospital resuscitation, especially for older adults, with studies showing inconsistent rates of meaningful survival after these potentially life-saving interventions, confounded by the physical and emotional trauma that accompanies them, poor understanding of patients’ and families’ wishes, unclear definitions of “meaningful,” and varying patient selection criteria. [The poem titled] “Again” distills some sense out of this complexity as only poetry can, with the urgent repetition of “again” expressing the ingrained imperative to act when patients experience cardiac arrest while echoing both the many previous resuscitations hospital staff well remember, along with the 2-beat, up-down muscle memory of performing chest compressions. ... Thus, a reflexive, futile endeavor becomes a human being’s dying moment, allowing us to feel closure. Debates around in-hospital resuscitation suddenly quieted, we recognize life’s inevitable finality, underscored by the poem’s ironically dignified resignation in its concluding line: “Never again did you wake.”Editor's note: Click here to access the poem, "Again."