Literature Review

Stamford-area seniors can now enjoy free daytime care Evergreen, Stamford, CT; by Evergreen Daytime Senior Care and CT Hospice; 10/3/25Thanks to a groundbreaking Medicare initiative, seniors living with dementia now qualify for benefits that help cover the cost of adult daytime care. Designed to improve quality of life, the GUIDE (Guiding an Improved Dementia Experience) Model, offered by Connecticut Hospice's Stand By Me program, features a full range of valuable services, including care coordination, caregiver education, and an annual respite benefit for up to 25 free days at adult day centers like Evergreen Daytime Senior Care. ... "We're excited to partner with Evergreen to provide high-quality adult day services to families enrolled in the GUIDE Model program," explained Mark Olynciw, GUIDE Program Manager at Connecticut Hospice. "Having trusted partners like Evergreen ensures our families have excellent options for their respite benefits."

Connecticut legislature expands employee safety requirements for home health and hospice agencies Pullman & Comley - Connecticut Health Law; 10/3/25In 2024, the Connecticut state legislature passed Public Act 24-19 to enhance protections for home health workers after a patient murdered a home health nurse. During its 2025 legislative session, the legislature passed Public Act 25-168 which, in Sections 184-186, amends the original law to require hospice agencies to comply with some of the provisions and to make other changes. These amendments went into effect on October 1, 2025. The 2024 Act Among other provisions in Public Act 24-19 are those codified at Sections 19a-491f, 19a-491g and 19a-491h, described below. [Continue reading.]

Honoring the lives and legacies of hospice leaders - September 2025

Emergency Departments report more consults for hospice, palliative care Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI; by Michigan State University; 9/25/25 One-third of Americans will visit an emergency department, or ED, within a month of their death. While EDs are primarily purposed to provide emergent care, they’re increasingly becoming an initial touchpoint for hospice and palliative care, or HPC, referrals and consultations, according to a new study from several researchers at Henry Ford Health + Michigan State University Health Sciences.  Why this matters:

Initiation of pregabalin vs gabapentin and development of heart failureJAMA Network Open; by Elizabeth E. Park, Laura L. Daniel, Alyson L. Dickson, Meghan Corriere, Puran Nepal, Kathi Hall, W. Dale Plummer, William D. Dupont, Katherine T. Murray, C. Michael Stein, Wayne A. Ray, Cecilia P. Chung; 8/25Both pregabalin and gabapentin are common nonopioid medications used to treat chronic pain, which affects up to 30% of patients. Because pregabalin has greater potency than gabapentin in binding to the α2δ subunit of the L-type calcium channel, pregabalin may be associated with an increased risk for heart failure (HF). The findings suggest that pregabalin should be prescribed with caution in older patients with noncancer chronic pain.

B2B website navigation: Structure that guides complex buyersTrajectory; updated 9/29/25 ...  42% of users will abandon your website as soon as they experience issues with functionality or usability. ... When someone can't find basic information quickly, they don't just leave your website. They question your company's competence. ... If [the site visitor] can't find the information category they need within 10-20 seconds, they often assume it doesn't exist and leave. That's not much time to prove you have answers to their complex questions. Your navigation must immediately signal that you understand their needs and have the depth of information they require.Editor's Note: Though written for B2B, these lessons matter for hospice websites (B2C). Patients, caregivers, healthcare decision makers, and family members of diverse generations need clarity in moments of stress. Review your website’s navigation through their intergenerational eyes—can they quickly find what hospice is and how to begin care? Clear pathways reflect the heart of hospice care: guidance and compassion.

Expert: In preparation for debut of HOPE tool Wednesday, hospices should provide training, adhere to timelines McKnights Home Care; by Adam Healy; 9/28/25 With the Hospice Outcomes and Patient Evaluation (HOPE) tool scheduled to roll out Wednesday, hospice providers need to get up to speed, ... Katy Barnett, director of home care and hospice operations and policy at LeadingAge, told McKnight’s Home Care Daily Pulse ... "To be successful with the new tool, providers need to adhere to a few best practices. ... Providers should have a designated staff member making sure that their assessments are uploaded within 30 days of completion and that they are accepted by the iQIES system,” she said. “In the first quarter of implementation, meeting the 90% threshold for timely reporting of data is key.” Barnett added, “Providers need to make sure they’re meeting the two-day timeline for symptom follow-up visits and that they’re tracking completion either within their EMR or externally. This is really important since the visits will count towards publicly reported quality measures starting in January.”Guest Editor's Note, from Judi Lund-Person: For patients who are already on service on October 1, hospices will only use the HOPE discharge process and will not use the HUV or SFV visits.  Have you registered for iQIES yet? There is still time….. although every hospice will want to pay close attention to the 90% compliance threshold – if it is not met, there could be a 4% payment reduction for the following year. Good luck with your final preparations!

40 HR executives gathered to discuss today’s biggest challenges: Here is what they said Seramount; by Grace Licsko; 9/26/25 This month, Seramount convened more than 40 CHROs and senior HR leaders for our latest HR Executive Board Roundtable. The event included findings from Seramount’s interviews with 100 CHROs and featured a fireside chat with Jacqui Canney, Chief People and AI Enablement Officer at ServiceNow. Across the day, participants exchanged perspectives on a wide range of priorities, from culture and hybrid work to sustaining employee well-being. But the conversation largely centered around GenAI. Below are some key takeaways and themes from the conversation. 

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One year after Hurricane Helene: Lessons in resilience, recovery, and renewal Hospice & Palliative Care Today; Joy Berger and Cordt Kassner with Vern Grindstaff, Millicent Burke-Sinclair, and Chris Comeaux; 9/26/25 At this time last year, Hospice & Palliative Care Today brought you a series of articles reporting on the devastating impact of Hurricane Helene across the Southeast, focusing on hospices in the North Carolina mountains. We remain deeply grateful for the many ways you—our readers and colleagues—rallied in support of those hospice organizations and their communities during their time of urgent need. This Saturday, September 27, 2025, marks the one-year anniversary of that epic disaster. To reflect on what has been learned and how recovery has unfolded, Vern Grindstaff (CEO of Compassionate Care WNC, Burnsville, NC), Millicent Burke-Sinclair (President and CEO of Four Seasons, Flat Rock, NC), and Chris Comeaux (President and CEO of Teleios Collaborative Network, Flat Rock, NC) gathered in conversation with Cordt Kassner (publisher) and Joy Berger (editor-in-chief). The insights that follow honor the hospice employees who persevered to provide urgent patient care. We celebrate their spirit of compassionate community and courageous problem-solving from the onset one year ago through ongoing recovery.

Busted: The top fraud schemes of Q2 2025 Cotiviti; by Erin Rutzler; 9/25/25As we move through 2025, the pace of fraud, waste, and abuse (FWA) schemes in healthcare show no signs of slowing. This past quarter brought cases involving unlicensed clinics, hospice kickbacks, insider deception, and prescription fraud totaling billions in false claims. Read our breakdown of 10 major healthcare FWA schemes from April through June 2025—and what they reveal about the evolving tactics of bad actors. ...

Surgeon perspectives on palliative care: Are we the barrier to better care?The Journal of Clinical Ethics; Sean J Donohue, Baddr A Shakhsheer, Peter Phung, Anthony W Kim, Monica Zell, Sean C Wightman; Fall 25Surgeons face numerous perioperative challenges when caring for patients with life-threatening or chronic diseases. Palliative care has been associated with an average reduction of $3,237 per admission, as well as reduction in emergency department visits, hospital admissions, and hospital length of stay. For patients within the intensive care setting, palliative interventions have shown a 26 percent relative risk reduction in intensive care unit length of stay and overall alignment of patients' and families' goals of care. It remains pervasive in surgical culture that operative intervention and palliation are mutually exclusive and occur sequentially, rather than concurrently. Preoperative palliative care consultations in surgical patients occur less than 1 percent of the time. Preoperative palliative care may serve to help explore, clarify, and document quality-of-life values and preferences, in hopes of better promoting goal-concordant care.