Literature Review

The sliver of light after losing a child: Personal perspective - a child's loss can provide elusive and rare gifts. Psychology Today; by David R Patterson PhD, ABPP; by 11/10/25 I have often said that working with patients who are dying has brought an ironic, but transient, feeling of exhilaration to my life. Most care providers who work in hospice will explain to us that people who are aware of their impending mortality have a sense of being in the present that those of us who are not so close to that inevitability can only admire from a distance. ... I don’t know whether this resonates with other parents that have lost a child, but I can say that a very clear impact of my son’s loss has been to become acutely aware of my own mortality. ... After living with my son’s death for three years, I am only just beginning to grasp the lessons that his death is teaching me.

Avera Medical Minute: Hospice care provides support and compassion for patients and families Dakota News Now, Sioux Falls, SD; by Dakota News Now staff; 11/10/25 Hospice care can help patients and their families focus on comfort and quality of life when treatment for an illness is no longer effective. Support from staff can come in a variety of ways, including medical, emotional, and spiritual. In this Avera Medical Minute, one family explains how choosing hospice for their loved one turned their final days into cherished moments together. ...

Number of ‘solo-agers’ skyrockets, AARP survey finds McKnights Home Care; by Adam Healy; 11/10/25The number of older adults living alone is rising quickly in the United States, but relatively few of these so-called “solo-agers” are confident in their ability to age safely on their own, according to a new survey by AARP.

Top health system divestments of 2025 Levin Associates; Dylan Sammut; 11/11/25 Throughout 2025, several major health systems have been focusing on downsizing their portfolios by divesting hospitals and other lines of business. Some transactions were from systems seeking to pay down debt, others resulted from bankruptcy proceedings and a number from systems exiting non-core markets. In our LevinPro HC database, we have tracked more than 20 divestments from health systems across various sectors, such as Hospitals, Home Health & Hospice and Physician Medical Groups. Here is a selection of the top health System divestments of 2025 so far.  

Difference-making factors linked to higher reach of Specialist Palliative Care among people with heart failure across a national sample of VA Medical Centers American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Medicine; by Yan Zhan, PhD, RN, MBA, Edward J. Miech, EdD, Erica A. Abel, PhD, MD, and Shelli L. Feder, PhD, APRN, FPCN, FAHA; 11/10/25 Conclusion:  High Specialist Palliative Care (SPC) reach among people with advanced heart failure (aHF) was linked to combinations of several modifiable factors related to staffing, cardiology involvement, and outpatient palliative care. These findings provide actionable insights into improving SPC delivery across VAMCs.Editor's Note: What education or other partnerships do you have with VA Medical Centers in your service areas? Or, what gaps for veterans exist because of a lack of VA Medical Centers? Use these "combinations of modifiable factors related to staffing, cardiology involvement, and outpatient palliative care" for your strategic planning to improve care for veterans struggling with advanced heart failure.

Hospice of Orange & Sullivan’s sixth annual community breakfast features caregivers’ emotional stories of courage, compassion and dignity FocusMedia, Middletown, NY; Press Release; 11/7/25 Hospice of Orange & Sullivan Counties, Inc.’s Sixth Annual Community Breakfast celebrated the profound difference Hospice makes through caregivers who shared touching stories of supporting patients during their final life journey. The ”Real Stories, Real Impact” panel discussion was moderated by Eric Gatsik, President and CEO of Hospice of Orange & Sullivan Counties and Heather Bell-Meyer, President and CEO of the Orange County Chamber of Commerce. About 115 attendees at the Barn at Villa Venezia connected, reflected and were inspired by stories of love, dignity and trust offered to patients at the end of their lives. 

Hospice organizations honor veteransHospice & Palliative Care Today; compiled by Joy Berger; 11/10/25 We honor all veterans today with these samples of ways that hospice and palliative care organizations are recognizing and thanking veterans for this 2025 Veterans Day.

"The Wounded Generation": Bearing the invisible scars of war CBS News; by Lesley Stahl; 11/9/25 In 1984, President Reagan commemorated the 40th anniversary of the invasion of Normandy, and paid tribute to the World War II soldiers known as "The Greatest Generation." ... But in his new book, historian David Nasaw calls them "The Wounded Generation." "They are the Greatest Generation, but they returned from war, bringing wounds home with them that are invisible; they're psychic wounds," he said. "Now we know that a lot of those wounds were PTSD. But PTSD was not diagnosed for 40 years after the return of the World War II veterans. ... Nasaw said [of his own father,] "He came home smoking three or four packs of Luckys a day. He came home with a heart condition from the war. He dies at age 61. And I had never had the chance to find out what happened in Eritrea, what he went through. So, what do I do as a historian? I can't find out his story, so I jumped in to find out the story of his generation."Editor's Note: While most World War II veterans are now gone, many of today’s hospice patients—particularly those who served in combat—carry similar invisible scars. Their psychic wounds, once unnamed, often resurface in life’s final chapter. This story also echoes in their adult children, who now seek to understand the unspoken pain that shaped their families. For more insight and support—especially regarding post-9/11 veterans—see the Wounded Warriors Project. 

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. ~ Abraham Lincoln, The Gettysburg Address, 1863.

Care of the dying patient: Maximizing compassionate care on the battlefield Military Medicine; by Kathryn B Muir, Jeremy Edwards, Rebeccah Dindinger, Benjamin Ingram, Benjamin Baker; 11/9/25... Palliative care has also been employed throughout history on the battlefield and is a vital component of compassionate care for dying patients. Unfortunately, its use on the battlefield is an unpalatable topic with little formal documentation. ... We must prepare now to reduce the pain and suffering of dying patients on the battlefield and potentially mitigate the degree of moral injury sustained by the personnel managing those casualties. Consider ...

California bans AI chatbots from posing as licensed health providersMedscape; by Steph Weber; 10/30/25California has drawn a hard line on how artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots represent themselves to consumers, banning the tools from implying they are licensed medical providers such as MDs and psychotherapists... “Everything keeps changing, so it’s hard to be definitive,” John Torous, MD, MBI, psychiatrist and director of the Digital Psychiatry Division in the Department of Psychiatry at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, told Medscape Medical News. “But there’s certainly concern that some AI chatbots are marketing directly to children and minors, and there’s direct evidence that some will actually pull up a fake medical license number.” ... “[T]he model by default should not provide instructions about how to commit suicide, but if an adult user is asking for help writing a fictional story that depicts a suicide, the model should help with that request,” Sam Altman, OpenAI CEO, said in a blog post on the company’s website in September. He added that the platform aims to “[extend] freedom as far as possible without causing harm or undermining anyone else’s freedom.”Publisher's note: AI regulatory lines are blurry and far behind advancements.

AAHPM 2026 Award WinnersAAHPM press release; 11/7/25Congratulations to all of 2026 award winners!