Literature Review

Senior living providers can tap into $25 million grant to develop dementia-specific respite servicesMcKnights Senior Living, by Kimberly Bonvissuto; 2/7/24Senior living operators who provide, or are considering providing, respite services for family caregivers of people living with dementia can apply for a piece of $20 million in grant funding. The Alzheimer’s Association will use a $25 million, five-year grant award from the US Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Community Living to establish a new Center for Dementia Respite Innovation tasked with making respite services and service providers more dementia-capable. 

Hospice providers must be better regulatedScientific American, 2/1/24 (updated from last week's publication)Too many hospice providers in the U.S. are run by private equity and for-profit corporations. A lack of regulation allows them to provide abysmal end-of-life care.

Hospice Benefit Policy Manual updates related to the addition of Marriage and Family Therapists or Mental Health Counselors to the Hospice Interdisciplinary TeamCMS; 1/22/24Change Request 13437 (PDF) purpose is to manualize changes to the hospice interdisciplinary group (IDG) to include Marriage and Family Therapists (MFTs) or Mental Health Counselors (MHCs). Publisher's note: Also see CMS Hospice Open Door Forum (November 29, 2023) Q&A.

Never be limited by other people’s limited imaginations. —  Dr. Mae Jemison

Individual socioeconomic factors have a greater impact on end-of-life care outcomes than regional factorsJournal of Palliative Medicine, by William H. Gansa, Hannah Kleijwegt, Melissa Aldridge, Claire Ankuda; 2/24High quality of care at the end of life may be more associated with individual socioeconomic factors than regional indicators, including degrees of rurality. Clinicians should strive to recognize the interplay of individual characteristics and regional indicators to provide more personalized care.Publisher's note: Also see https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/jpm.2023.0163.

The administrative burden on palliative academic physiciansJournal of Pain and Symptom Management, by Rida Khan, Michael Tang, Ahsan Azhar, Eduardo Bruera; 1/24Every faculty member spends annually an approximate average of 5,300 minutes on administrative activities (approximately the equivalent of 29 consults plus 133 follow-ups). Using the department net average per encounter, the approximate value of these encounters is $36, 936 for each faculty member (about 11 clinical days)... We recommend that regulatory agencies and institutions work together to better regulate this list of tasks and their frequency.

Health care costs associated with hospice use for people with dementia in the USHealth Affairs, by Melissa D Aldridge, Lauren J Hunt, Krista L Harrison, Karen McKendrick, Lihua Li, R Sean Morrison; 9/23Policy makers in the US are increasingly concerned that greater use of the Medicare hospice benefit by people with dementia is driving up costs... For community-dwelling people with dementia, Medicare costs were lower for those who used hospice than for those who did not, whether hospice enrollment was in the last three days ($2,200) or last three months ($7,200) of life, primarily through lower inpatient care costs in the last days of life...

Hidden disparities: How language influences patients' access to cancer careNational Comprehensive Cancer Network, by Debbie W Chen, Mousumi Banerjee, Xin He, Lesley Miranda, Maya Watanabe, Christine M Veenstra, Megan R Haymart; 9/23Linguistic disparities exist in access to cancer care for non-English-speaking patients, emphasizing the need for focused interventions to mitigate systems-level communication barriers.

Dr. Hillary Lum appointed Editor-in-Chief of Palliative Medicine ReportsPress release / email; 2/12/24We are pleased to announce that Hillary Lum, MD, PhD has been appointed incoming Editor-in-Chief of Palliative Medicine Reports, published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. We warmly thank Dr. Christopher Jones for his tenure of leadership and dedication to the publication and the field. Dr. Lum serves as Associate Professor at University of Colorado and completed the MD-PhD program at the University of Wisconsin. Previously, Dr. Lum served as an Associate Editor on Journal of Palliative Medicine and is incredibly active in the community, serving as a member of the American Geriatrics Society and the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine.

Character is power. – Booker T. Washington

7 recent hospital, health system CEO moves - updated Feb. 14Becker's Hospital Review, by Alexis Kayser; 2/14/24[Click on the title above for] ... hospital and health system CEO moves recently reported by Becker's.

Mayo steps up to plug care gaps as HSHS exits WisconsinBecker's Hospital CFO Report, by Alan Condon; 2/12/24Mayo Clinic is striving to help close a significant gap in patient care in Western Wisconsin, where two hospitals and almost 20 clinics are expected to close in the coming months. The move comes as Springfield, Ill.-based Hospital Sisters Health System, currently a 15-hospital system, announced plans to abruptly exit the Wisconsin market. 

Chapters CEO Andrew Molosky: Building an ecosystem of care around the seriously illHospice News, by Jim Parker; 2/13/24Going forward, hospice and other post-acute providers are preparing to operate within a value-based ecosystem, and Florida-based nonprofit Chapters Health System is no exception. ... The organization has been hard at work in recent years to position itself for risk-based relationships and build out a continuum of care for chronically and terminally ill patients, while maintaining positive employee engagement.