Literature Review

New hospice home set to open in Burton, offering home-like care for end-of-life patients mlive.com; by Fuad Shalhout; 4/25/24A new hospice home is expected to open in Burton [MI] this summer. ... By creating a guest home in Burton, individuals will receive hospice care in a home-like setting to live out their final days instead of a hospital. ... “We’ve been renovating it for the last six months just making it safe for people,” said Diane Welker, one of the group’s founders and a retired palliative care nurse practitioner at Hurley Medical Center. The foundation received a $4,300 grant from Home Depot to pay for the flooring, and the Community Foundation of Greater Flint provided a $45,000 grant to help with renovations.

VNA completes land purchase near hospital VeroNews.com; by Lisa Zahner; 4/25/24The Visiting Nurse Association of the Treasure Coast finally owns the land under its Hospice House building after closing last week on the purchase for $3.8 million of a prime chunk of real estate just east of Cleveland Clinic Indian River Hospital. For decades, VNA had leased the 14.56-acre parcel on 37th Street from the Hospital District. The 12,000-square-foot 12-bed Hospice House, plus 4.2 acres of tropical meditation gardens, and a memorial are situated at the rear or south end of the parcel, while more than half of the land with 37th Street frontage remains vacant.

Beyond compensation: Culture as a benefit HR Daily Advisor; by G Hatfield; 4/24/24 Compensation is not the only factor that nurses consider when choosing a health system. Benefits packages, workplace culture, safety, and flexibility all play a role in the decision-making process. CNOs should take a look at their health system’s offerings to make sure they are attractive to new nurses and that they are staying competitive in the industry. During the HealthLeaders’ Nurse Labor and Compensation NOW Summit, Robin Steaban, Chief Nursing Officer at Vanderbilt University Hospital, spoke about  innovative perks to attract and keep nurses, and how workplace culture and safety play a role as benefits alongside compensation.

Remembrance Ceremony raises more than $76,000 for nonprofit hospice services Press Release; Avow Hospice, Naples, FL; 4/24/24 Avow gathered hundreds of individuals in Cambier Park for its 18th annual Butterfly Release on April 6, 2024. The remembrance ceremony was marked by an outpouring of generosity, with attendees and supporters contributing more than $76,000 to support Avow's mission. Funds raised will directly benefit Avow community bereavement programs, ensuring that it can continue to offer free grief and loss services to the community. The ceremony gave flight to more than 1,000 butterflies, symbolizing hope, transformation, and remembrance. The moving celebration of life honored 650 loved ones as their names were read aloud during the ceremony.

Hall to retire from Hospice; new KEDCO CEO to be announced Times Union Online, by David L. Slone; 4/23/24 In giving their quarterly reports to the Kosciusko County Commissioners Tuesday, one organization revealed a forthcoming retirement while the second organization said a new CEO would be taking the helm in June. Suzie Light, Kosciusko Economic Development Corporation interim co-CEO, reported during KEDCO’s first quarter she and Greg Fitzloff served as interim co-CEOs. ... “We are not making a public announcement. We are happy to report that there will be a public announcement soon on the new CEO, who will take the helm in mid June. We’re really excited that we’ve got a very talented individual who’s coming on board. ...," Light stated.

Hospice nurse reveals the most common deathbed regretsUnilad; by Niamh Shackleton; 4/24/24Bronnie Ware, a nurse who has spent a large majority of her career working in palliative care, found that there were five common things that people regretted about their lives upon reflection as they approached death.

Life is a choice. It is YOUR life. Choose consciously, choose wisely, choose honestly. Choose happiness. - by Bronnie Ware Editor's Note: This quote is from today's article, "Hospice nurse reveals the most common deathbed regrets."

UPMC lays off 1,000 employees, citing market challengesModern Healthcare, by Caroline Hudson; 4/24/24UPMC is laying off about 1,000 employees, or slightly more than 1% of its workforce. The layoffs are effective immediately, a spokesperson said Wednesday. The cuts mostly affect non-clinical, non-member-facing and administrative employees, Paul Wood, chief communications officer at UPMC, said in a statement. ... Pittsburgh-based UPMC operates 40 hospitals and 800 doctor's offices and outpatient sites in Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland and some international locations. Its insurance division covers more than 4 million members. The nonprofit health system reported a $31 million net loss in 2023, compared with a more than $1 billion loss the prior year. Operating losses for 2023 totaled $198 million.

End-of-life care facility for people experiencing homelessness opens on Monona Drive [Wisconsin] Isthmus, Madison, WI, by Linda Falkenstein; 4/23/24It started as an idea from palliative care physician Dr. Ann Catlett. Catlett had experienced having to discharge terminally ill patients who had no housing onto the streets. And she had seen a model home where patients without a home could live out their days in peace, receive hospice services and other daily palliative care. ... Thus was born Solace Friends, a Madison-area nonprofit with the goal of opening a care facility for people with terminal illnesses who are unhoused or experiencing housing insecurity. ... The opening of the adult family home was celebrated Tuesday with a press conference and tour of the facility.

The cancer caregiving burden trajectory over time: varying experiences of perceived versus objectively measured burden The Oncologist, by Laura A Siminoff, Maureen Wilson-Genderson, Marcin Chwistek, Maria Thomson; 4/23/24 Conclusions: Cancer caregiving is dynamic; [caregivers] CGs must adjust to the progression of the patient's disease. We found an association between subjective and objective burden both within and between CGs. Black CGs were more likely to report lower subjective burden compared to their White counterparts. More detailed investigation of the sociocultural components that affect caregiver experience of burden is needed to better understand how and where to best intervene with targeted supportive care services.

States lack resources to support new Medicaid waiver programs, association asserts McKnights Home Care, by Adam Healy; 4/22/24 Medicaid 1115 waivers, which are commonly used to improve or expand home- and community-based services, face serious challenges as understaffed state programs are increasingly incapable of moving proposals through the administrative “pipeline,” the National Association of Medicaid Directors said in a recent letter. “The tough reality is that the Center for Medicaid and CHIP Services, which has taken many steps to streamline its administrative processes, simply does not have the staff resources to move forward all of the waivers in its pipeline,” Kate McEvoy, executive director of NAMD, wrote in the letter. 

Employing telehealth to ease the hospice transition for kids with cancer mHelathIntelligence, by Anuja Vaidya; 4/23/24 ... In a study published in the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management last month, Children's Healthcare of Atlanta researchers detailed a telehealth-based intervention the hospital has employed to ease the transition to hospice for young cancer patients and their families. ... The intervention includes a series of coordinated telehealth visits during the first month of hospice enrollment for children or young adults, 29 or younger, with cancer. ... Hospice nurses participating in the pilot received a tablet equipped with mobile WiFi cellular service that they would take to the family's home, which enabled the [hospital/pediatric specialty] nurses and families to join the call. ... The most important finding of the study was that coordinated telehealth visits between the hospital, hospice, and the families during the first month of hospice enrollment were feasible and acceptable to all participants.

Medicare Advantage complaints that the plans don’t want – and the review of systems that wasn’t done RACmonitor, by Ronald Hirsch, MD, FACP, ACPA-C, CHCQM, CHRI; 4/24/24 ... In the past, I have talked about complaining to your regional Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) office about violations of CMS-4201-F, but Dr. [Eddie] Hu described how to do it to actually get action. [Click on the title's link for details] ... Now, why should you take the time to file these complaints? ... Why should you take the time to file these complaints? Because CMS tracks formal complaints, and a lot of complaints can significantly affect their quality bonus – and we know how when their money is at risk, the MA plans suddenly pay attention. ...