Literature Review

Medicare Final Rule changes that home health providers need to know Home Health Care News; by Morgan Gonzales; 12/17/25 The Medicare home health final payment rule for calendar year 2026 has been most discussed for its methodology and its 1.3% aggregate rate cut, but other aspects of the final rule require home health providers to carefully strategize for the upcoming year. ... In 2026, it will be key for providers to determine their case-mix weights and how to work with different PDGM groups, according to Cindy Campbell, senior director of advisory services at WellSky.

Seven-figure estate gift bolsters hospice care: Madeline Childs' generous bequest honors her late husband Hometown News, Rockledge, FL; Press Release; 12/7/25 The Health First Foundation is honored to announce a transformational seven-figure planned gift from the late Madeline Childs to support the William Childs Hospice House in Palm Bay and Hospice of Health First’s inpatient hospice programs. Madeline’s final act of generosity reflects a commitment that began more than two decades ago. In 2002, her husband, Bill, received hospice care during his final days. The experience was brief, but it left a lasting imprint on her. Out of that moment of personal loss, Madeline chose to give back by establishing an irrevocable estate gift that would ultimately lead to the naming of the William Childs Hospice House in Bill’s memory.

December is proof that coffee and candy can fuel an entire workforce until vacation.Bonus: Christmas candy - facts and traditions for you to know

Innovations in senior living  with Katie Smith Sloan Teleios Collaborative Network (TCN); podcast hosted by Chris Comeaux with Katie Smith; 12/17/25 What if aging services led the way in redesigning care—combining smart technology with deeper human connection?  That’s the challenge Katie Smith Sloan, President and CEO of LeadingAge, brings to the table as we unpack the data, the headwinds, and the promise across nonprofit senior living, home-based care, and hospice. ... Together, Chris and Katie explore how collaboration, innovation, and values-driven leadership can reshape aging services to better serve older adults—and those who care for them. 

Today’s cyberattacks may be too advanced for traditional antivirus protection Kenosha.com; by Mark Hoffman; 12/19/25 ... The cybersecurity landscape has fundamentally shifted, with endpoint devices now the primary targets of malicious actors seeking to infiltrate business networks. According to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center, businesses reported over $12.5 billion in losses from cyberattacks in 2023, representing a 22% increase from the previous year. Remote work has exponentially expanded the attack surface, creating millions of new endpoint vulnerabilities that traditional endpoint security tools struggle to monitor effectively.

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. ...

End-of-life care needs cultural humility and social justice BMJ; by Jamilla Akhter Hussain, Rekha Vijayshankar, and Mary Hodgson; 12/18/25 Death, dying, and grief are not medical events—they are profoundly social, relational, and shaped by the histories people carry into their final days. ... [A] key question is: how can end-of-life care services become more trustworthy? Too often, institutions respond with so-called cultural competency initiatives. ... What is needed is cultural humility and social justice. Cultural humility involves ongoing self-reflection and acknowledgement of bias at individual, organisational, and system levels. Palliative care must prioritise cultural humility and social justice: trust grows not through outreach alone but through shared creation of knowledge, meaning, and care—and at the end of life ...

‘Heart of cancer care’: Social workers can improve advance care planning documentation Healio; by Josh Friedman; 12/16/25 Empowering social workers to discuss advance care planning with older patients with cancer could improve documentation of goals, focus treatment decisions and reduce burdens on oncologists and the cancer care team. A pilot program at Penn Medicine Princeton Health showed embedding a social worker into routine oncology visits for patients aged 65 years and older doubled documentation in the electronic health record. Editor's Note: Read this result again, using social workers doubled documention in the EHR for patients 65 years and older, underscoring the clinical and ethical impact of relationship-centered conversations led by trained professionals. 

Impact of prognostic notifications on inpatient advance care planning: A cluster randomized trialJournal of Pain and Symptom Management; by Jessica E Ma, Kayla W Kilpatrick, Clemontina A Davenport, Jonathan Walter, Yvonne Acker, Noppon Setji, Maren K Olsen, Mihir Patel, Michael Gao, Matthew Gardner, Jamie Gollon, Mark Sendak, Suresh Balu, David Casarett;12/25A poor prognosis is an important trigger for advance care planning (ACP) conversations, but clinicians often overestimate prognosis... A pragmatic cluster randomized trial... randomized attending physicians on the inpatient medicine team. An email and page notification was sent to physicians randomized to intervention group for admitted patients at high risk of 30-day and 6-month death based on a machine learning model. The notification recommended to have and document an ACP conversation in the electronic health record (EHR)... Patients of physicians randomized to the intervention group were more likely to have a documented ACP conversation by the randomized physician compared to the control group.

[UK] 'It’s like a weight lifted off your shoulders’: A qualitative study of adult carers taking a breakJournal of Family Issues; by Richard Meade, Debbie Cavers, Neneh Rowa-DewarView; 11/25Unpaid carers play a vital role in supporting individuals with life-limiting conditions, yet without adequate support, they risk poor health and burnout. Ten in-depth interviews were conducted with carers who had used temporary institutional respite services in Scotland. Six key themes emerged: ‘Caring is all-consuming’; ‘Caring changes sense of self’; ‘Relief, recovery, repair’; ‘Breaks give carers their lives back (briefly)’; ‘A break doesn’t solve everything’; and ‘Trust in the respite centre is crucial’. Findings indicate that institutional respite care provides overwhelmingly positive experiences for most carers, offering them essential relief and recovery from the demanding nature of caregiving. However, the benefits were often short-lived, with carers expressing a need for longer and more frequent breaks.

Bereavement service deserts: A 2024 statewide assessment of  bereavement services Death Studies, open access; by Christopher W. Giang, Luisa Kcomt, Joshua Truchan, Kara Dickinson, Rebecca J. Evans-Polce & Sean Esteban McCabe; 12/5/25... This paper introduces the term “bereavement service desert” to describe geographic areas with high mortality and little to no access to bereavement services. Bereavement services deserts are especially concerning where elevated death rates are met with an absence of formal grief supports, trained providers, or community-based resources. As these trends in death have continued to rise over the last decade, the social and economic costs of unresolved grief are becoming more apparent in families, schools, com munities, workplaces, and healthcare systems. ...Editor's Note: Though this research focuses on bereavement agencies across Michigan's 83 counties, its methodologies and outcomes provide data, references, and insights relevant to examining bereavement care in all U.S. states. What are the "bereavement service deserts" in the your state(s)? In the areas you serve?

A legacy of care: How Good Shepherd has served Newton for nearly 50 yearsFig City News, Newton, MA; by Parker Maslowski; 12/15/25 … The story of Good Shepherd began, fittingly, with an act of compassion that crossed an ocean. In the late 1970s, members of the Parish of the Good Shepherd learned about the revolutionary hospice movement emerging in England. … A group of parishioners believed Newton needed something similar. … Newton-Wellesley Hospital donated office space in the Ellison Building. The small program assembled a core team of nurses, a physician, social workers, and volunteers who provided direct patient support, administrative help, and fundraising. And the Hospice of the Good Shepherd opened its doors in the fall of 1979 – the first hospice in Massachusetts.