Literature Review

Interprofessional collaboration between hospital-based palliative care teams and hospital ward staff: A realist review PLoS One; by Louana Moons, Fouke Ombelet, Mieke Deschodt, Maaike L De Roo, Eva Oldenburger, Inge Bossuyt, Peter Pype; 12/19/25  Conclusion: This realist review highlights the complexity of interprofessional collaboration between PCTs and ward staff, emphasizing the importance of tailored approaches that address specific contextual needs, expectations, and norms. Strengthening positive attitudes, clarifying roles, and fostering partnerships can enhance interprofessional collaboration, ultimately improving palliative care quality in hospital settings.

Hospice House reopens after $3.5M in renovations Tri-Cities Area Journal of Business; by TCA JOB Staff; 12/25/25 After several months of renovations, Tri-Cities Chaplaincy’s Hospice House is hosting a Dec. 29 ribbon-cutting to celebrate its reopening. The nearly 30-year-old building at 2108 W. Entiat Ave., Kennewick, helps care for hospice patients for short-term stays to help with severe symptoms or to give caregivers a break.  The $3.5 million renovation created a larger nurse station, an expanded front entryway, added a fireside room to honor loved ones, upgraded family gathering areas and enhanced patient rooms. “This renovation ensures it will continue to serve families with compassion, comfort, and dignity for decades to come,” said Laurie Jackson, CEO of Tri-Cities Chaplaincy.

When the nurse becomes the daughter: Lessons from my father's final daysAmerican Journal of Hospice & Palliative Care; by Keshia R Brown; 11/25Military service demands sacrifice, but no professional challenge prepared me for the deeply personal experience of caring for my father at the end of his life. This experience transformed my understanding of nursing by revealing the profound impact of presence, love, and dignity-centered care. Caring for my father illuminated the intersection of professional skill and personal devotion, demonstrating that the heart of nursing extends beyond clinical interventions. It resides in honoring the whole person and offering unwavering compassion in their most vulnerable moments. This narrative reflects on the emotional, ethical, and spiritual lessons learned as I walked my father through his final chapter-an unexpected gift and the greatest honor of my nursing career.

Is moral adequacy possible in the face of structural disadvantage? The experiences of health and social care staff in supporting homeless people using substances at the end of life Palliative Care and Social Practice; by Gary Witham https, Gemma Anne Yarwood, Sarah Galvani, Lucy Webb, and Sam Wright; 11/26/25 Background: Homeless people using substances at the end-of-life face many challenges in accessing and receiving good care. These can relate to poor interdisciplinary working by health and social care practitioners, stigma and structural disadvantage.Results: The data analysis resulted in three key discourse positions relating to how practitioners position themselves in relation to the practice challenges of supporting homeless people using AODs and approaching end of life. These were as follows: (i) what constitutes a good death and where, (ii) the limitations of professional boundaries and (iii) maintaining moral adequacy in the face of traumatic death.

Top healthcare sectors attracting private equity in 2025 Covenant Health Advisors; 12/18/25 ... If you’ve ever wondered how private equity shapes the healthcare world, stick around. We’ll break it down in simple terms, so it’s easy to follow. ...

Executive Personnel Changes - 12/19/25

Validation of a claims-based algorithm for specialist palliative care delivery in metastatic cancerJournal of Pain and Symptom Management; by May Hua, Zhixin Yang, Ling Guo, J Brian Cassel, R Sean Morrison, Guohua Li; 11/25The lack of valid methods to identify specialist palliative care (PC) delivery in population-level data impedes comprehensive understanding of its use... We developed a claims-based algorithm to identify specialist PC, using a physician billing claim from a known PC clinician as the gold standard, retaining candidate variables with a positive predictive value (PPV) >60%... A simple algorithm can identify receipt of specialist PC care in Medicare claims for patients with metastatic cancer with reasonable accuracy.Publisher's Note: While this is a statistically sophisticated article, findings support use of the palliative care provider specialty code (Provider Specialty Code 17) and encounter for palliative care code (ICD-10 Z51.5) to identify specialist palliative care delivery in a specific population (Medicare beneficiaries with metastatic cancer claims).

Sunday newsletters focus on headlines and top read stories of the last week (in order) - enjoy!

I slept and I dreamed that life is all joy. I woke and I saw that life is all service. I serviced and I saw that service is joy. ~Kahlil Gibran, Pearls of Rumi

The hidden influence of social narratives on end-of-life decisionsJournal of Applied Social Science; by Stephanie Smith; 11/25Widespread exposure to idealized and distorted portrayals of death across news media, entertainment, and advertising has reshaped societal understandings of mortality. Often depicted as rare, swift, conquerable, or emotionally distant, death is stripped of realistic representation, obscuring the complexities of the dying process. Drawing on social cognitive theory, this interdisciplinary conceptual analysis examines how such portrayals function as behavioral models—shaping individual attitudes toward mortality, influencing end-of-life care decisions, and informing public health policy and resource allocation. Addressing these distortions requires a cross‑disciplinary shift in cultural attitudes, bringing together storytellers, clinicians, educators, and policymakers to integrate authentic portrayals of dying into public discourse, reframe aging as a valued stage of life, and expand access to death education. Such efforts can dismantle harmful myths, support informed decision-making, and guide healthcare systems toward practices that balance medical possibility with human dignity. In doing so, society may cultivate a more honest, empathetic, and developmentally appropriate relationship with mortality.