Literature Review

Hospice of Michigan receives $10,000 grant for pediatric hospice care Ludington Daily News, Manistee, MI; 12/20/25Hospice of Michigan has received a $10,000 grant from the Manistee County Community Foundation to support its Jo Elyn Nyman Anchors Programs for Children, which provide specialized pediatric hospice care for children with life-limiting illnesses and their families. The grant will help fund medical, emotional, social and spiritual support services delivered through the not-for-profit’s pediatric hospice programs. Hospice of Michigan is the only statewide hospice provider offering specialized pediatric hospice care services in northeast Michigan.

Holistic hospice provider expands to Pinellas County Catalyst; by Mark Parker; 12/24/25 A national end-of-life care company with unique offerings, including pet visits, personal pampering and Memory Bears made from a patient’s clothing, has expanded to Pinellas County. VITAS Healthcare is a nearly 50-year-old mobile hospice provider that takes a holistic approach to providing support during a sensitive time in someone’s life. A new administrative office at 12425 28th St. N. in St. Petersburg serves as a home base for interdisciplinary care teams. Kathleen Coronado, vice president of operations, said VITAS plans to eventually open a local inpatient center “for patients who need a higher level of care.” However, the company’s primary goal is to provide comfort wherever patients call home.

CMS weighs advance care planning quality measure for nursing homesMcKnight's Long-Term Care News; by Kimberly Marselas;12/16/25Nursing homes could soon be measured on their ability to capture advance care planning documents for their patients, according to a federal publication. On Monday, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services released its 2025 list of measures under consideration. Among 24 new or updated metrics pitched for a range of Medicare programs, just one would directly affect skilled nursing: Advance Care Planning.

Harvey Max Chochinov, MD PhD - selected publicationsHospice & Palliative Care Today compilation; Cordt Kassner; 9/17/25Publisher's note: This week I attended a brilliant webinar by Dr. Chochinov, "Dignity, personhood and intensive caring: New insights into patient suffering", part of the McGill University "Lessons in living from the dying" lecture series. To highlight a few of his books and 200+ articles:

Hands Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA); by R. Jordan Williams, MD, MPH; 8/13/25Lend me your handCallused or calaminedWrinkled or plump,Nails bittenNails extendedSplintered and pittedNails neatly or never cropped.Lend me your handStrong or weakCold or warmingSwollen and swanned;Gnarled in knots ...Editor's Note: Continue reading this powerful poem. Reflecting on its meanings, JAMA paired "Hands" with this description of the poem in "Poetry and the Medicine of Touch" by Rafael Campo, MD, MA: "In this deeply felt poem, the hand becomes a potent metaphor for our shared humanity ... Aspiring clinicians are still taught to assess, to palpate, to diagnose through touch. Yet, as “Hands” reminds us, patients’ hands hold far more than clinical signs—they reflect stories, histories, fears, and hopes. ..."

See this video clip of a young man surfing a wave estimated to be 108 feet tall - easily the world's largest wave ever surfed. What's your goal this year?

Contemporary patterns of end-of-life care among Medicare beneficiaries with advanced cancer JAMA Network - JAMA Health Forum; by Youngmin Kwon, PhD; Xin Hu, PhD, MPSH; Kewei Sylvia Shi, MPH; Jingxuan Zhao, MPH, PhD; Changchuan Jiang, MD, MPH; Qinjin Fan, MS, PhD; Xuesong Han, PhD; Zhiyuan Zheng, PhD; Joan L. Warren, PhD; K. Robin Yabroff, PhD, MBA; 2/21/25Conclusions: In a contemporary cohort of older Medicare decedents originally diagnosed with advanced breast, prostate, pancreatic, or lung cancer, we found that many patients continue to receive potentially aggressive interventions at EOL at the expense of supportive care services. To make meaningful improvements in the quality of EOL care, a multifaceted approach that addresses patient, physician, and system-level factors associated with persistent patterns of potentially aggressive care will be required. Editor's note: Though published just one week ago--February 21--this journal article is already being used extensively, as demonstrated in our posts on 2/24 and 2/25.

In their own words: Creating connections through narrative medicineJournal of Patient Experience; by Sneha Mantri, Lissa Kapust, Jillian Goober, David K Simon; 11/25People with Parkinson's disease (PwP) often report feeling unheard or hurried through clinical visits, without the opportunity to share their unique illness story. Simultaneously, clinicians report increasing dissatisfaction with efficiency pressures that disincentivize active listening and patient-centered communication. This research brief outlines a guided short-form journaling activity, the 55-word story, for PwP to share their stories in a format that can be received by busy clinicians. By the end of each cohort, nearly all (31/35 participants, 88.6%) reported an improved relationship with their neurologist, communication skills, clarity about goals and values, and/or increased community with other PwP. An online guided journaling activity was feasible, enjoyable, and successful at improving the well-being of PwP. This model can be used at other institutions or with other chronic illnesses.

323.3: What happens after the gift? Insights from organ procurement organizations on strengthening aftercare in the United StatesTransplantation; by Levan, Macey; Akhtar, Jasmine; Sidoti, Carolyn; Kaplow, Katya; Klitenic, Samantha; Flower, Tessa; Yusef, Bola; Vanterpool, Karen; Parent, Brendan; Koons, Brittany; 12/25Each of the 55 U.S. organ procurement organizations (OPOs) is responsible for obtaining authorization for donation and supporting donor families through the donation process. While federal regulations mandate certain responsibilities related to authorization and coordination, there is no regulatory requirement that OPOs provide services to families after donation. Nonetheless, most OPOs have developed “aftercare” programs, which historically have focused on honoring loved ones, commemorating donation, and offering limited grief-related support. Facilitators of meaningful aftercare included peer connection efforts, standardized data processes, and tailoring services to diverse family needs. However, the structure, scope, and intensity of these programs vary widely, and there has been little national attention to standardizing or modernizing aftercare efforts. Common barriers to effective aftercare included limited access to mental health resources, low survey response rates, insufficient staffing or funding, and fragmentation between initial and long-term support teams. 

Abstract 4364177: Underutilization of palliative care in peripheral artery disease: A state-of-the-art review across cardiovascular conditionsCirculation; by Odaly Balasquide-Odeh, Roberto Lapetina-Arroyo, Christiany Tapia, Alvaro Pinto-Rodriguez, Santiago Callegari, Mufti Rahman, Gaelle Romain, Kim Smolderen, Carlos Mena-Hurtado, Aseem Vashist, 11/25Peripheral artery disease (PAD) is associated with high morbidity and mortality, yet palliative care (PC), a supportive, team-based approach integrated remains underutilized. This review contrasted PC components, patient-level and program outcomes, and patient-reported outcomes across heart failure (HF), coronary artery disease (CAD), and peripheral artery disease (PAD). HF programs provide a transferable template for PAD, based on an early, structured and multidisciplinary PC. This could lead to a PAD-specific care model that integrates best practices from HF and that helps address underuse in a vulnerable and overlooked population.

Translating the value of palliative transfusions for patients with blood cancers into high-quality end-of-life careJAMA Network Open; by Pamela Egan, Dana Guyer; 11/25Studies have described how patients with blood cancers enroll in hospice care at lower rates than patients with solid tumor cancers, receive more futile chemotherapy, are more likely to seek emergency care at the EOL [end of life] , are more likely to be treated in intensive care units, and are more likely to die in hospital settings than their counterparts with solid tumors. The Medicare hospice benefit is structured in such a way that providing transfusions is cost prohibitive for hospice agencies. It is time to heed the call from the American Society of Hematology and palliative care and hospice agencies nationwide to revise the Medicare hospice benefit such that patients with blood cancers can receive hospice care as soon as their cancer-directed treatments are no longer valuable without sacrificing the quality-of-life–sustaining transfusions. This will be an important step toward ensuring high-quality EOL care for patients with hematologic malignant neoplasms.

Teaching primary palliative nursing care: A model of competency-based educationJournal of Professional Nursing; by Hannah Murphy Buc, Melissa McClean, Janet Armstead Wulf; Jan-Feb 2026Holistic care models such as primary palliative care offer individuals a coordinated, interprofessional and compassionate approach in any healthcare setting regardless of condition. Currently, palliative and end-of-life nursing care content is either threaded throughout nursing curricula or not included at all. This article documents the development of a required primary palliative care course in a baccalaureate nursing program and shares recommendations on competency-based teaching and evaluation methods to encourage implementation in other academic nursing settings. Course evaluations indicate that the class was well received and valuable to students' learning experience.