Literature Review

68 hospitals, health systems cutting jobs Becker's Hospital Review; by Kelly Gooch and Kristin Kuchno; 8/29/25 A number of hospitals and health systems are reducing their workforces or jobs amid financial and operational challenges. [Listed] are workforce reduction efforts or job eliminations announced in 2025.

Our Hospice Concert raises $71,000 The Republic, Columbus, IN; by Hallie Gallinat; 9/3/25 Organizers say more than 1,200 people attended the 39th annual Our Hospice Summer Concert Saturday at the Circle K Fieldhouse at NexusPark to listen to the music of Elton John, Billy Joel and The Eagles. This year’s concert raised $71,000 to benefit Our Hospice programs and services. Funds raised from the concert directly support Our Hospice’s mission to provide hospice care, bereavement services and palliative care for patients and families across South Central Indiana.

Publicly traded hospice companies seeking acquisitions, reporting substantial growth Hospice News; by Jim Parker; 8/28/25 The nation’s largest hospice companies are seeing significant hospice growth amid executive changes and rising interest in M&A. These are the key themes that emerged during this year’s second quarter earnings season, in which publicly traded home health and hospice companies report their financial results, guidance for the remainder of the year and other key announcements. ... 

CMS updates AHEAD model: 6 things to know Becker's Hospital Review; by Alan Condon; 9/2/25 CMS on Sept. 2 unveiled policy and operational updates to the Achieving Healthcare Efficiency through Accountable Design Model, a state total cost of care initiative launched in 2023 to curb spending, improve population health and advance health equity. Six things to know: 

Social workers’ role in improving hospice live discharge processes Hospice News; by Holly Vossel; 8/26/25 A lack of standardized care coordination is challenging the ability for patients and families to receive support following a live discharge from hospice. Deeper integration of social work services may help address the issue. This is according to findings from a recent study published in the Journal of Gerontological Social Work, which examined different methodologies for preparing patients, family caregivers and providers for hospice-initiated live discharges from social worker perspectives. 

The VA as a beacon of innovation in serious illness careCTAC blog; by Tom Edes; 8/27/25In this time of federal service reorganization, we are called to remember what history has taught us: innovation rooted in both compassion and evidence can transform care for people with serious illness. Few institutions embody this lesson better than the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). For decades, the VA has stood as both a care provider and an innovator, serving Veterans of all ages living with chronic diseases and disabilities... The VA’s story is not just about the past; it is about what is possible for the future of American health care if we choose to invest in it.

Awards and Recognitions: August 2025

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Hospice Research Information 8/30/25

Estimating the predictability of questionable open-access journalsScience Advances; by Han Zhuang, Lizhen Liang, Daniel E. Acuna; 8/25Questionable journals threaten global research integrity, yet manual vetting can be slow and inflexible. Here, we explore the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) to systematically identify such venues by analyzing website design, content, and publication metadata. Evaluated against extensive human-annotated datasets, our method achieves practical accuracy and uncovers previously overlooked indicators of journal legitimacy... Our study defines “questionable open-access journals” as journals violating the best practices outlined by the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and showing indicators of low editorial standards.Publisher's note: The authors use AI to evaluate open-access journals adherence to best publishing practices - an interesting use of AI that could be applied to many other settings. The list of open-access journals can be found here.

Understanding trauma in the context of direct care work in nursing homesJournal of Applied Gerontology; by Alfred Boakye, Jennifer Craft Morgan, Candace L. Kemp, Antonius D. Skipper; 8/25Direct care workers (DCWs) experience job quality challenges such as heavy workload, low pay, and few benefits. Layered risks such as the COVID-19 pandemic and systemic racism have impacted DCWs, made them more vulnerable, and increased turnover and the precarity of the long-term care system and residents’ care. Findings suggest that DCWs are often crippled with challenges stemming from the impact of COVID-19, work-related factors, and personal factors. Understanding the intersection of trauma provides a detailed contextual description of care work, which is important for developing practical coping strategies, either at the personal or organizational levels, and developing more refined trauma-informed initiatives to build resilience and support DCWs.

A digital therapeutic intervention for inpatients with elevated suicide risk: A randomized clinical trialJAMA Network; by Craig J. Bryan, Patricia Simon, Samuel T. Wilkinson, Michael H. Allen, Jeremiah Perez, Caleb Adler, Khatiya Moon, Lauren Astorino, Kristen M. Carpenter, Luke Misquitta, Katherine Brownlowe, Lauren R. Khazem, Jarrod Hay, Austin G. Starkey, Julia Tartaglia, Helena Winston, Scott Simpson, Alecia D. Dager, Seth Feuerstein; 8/25Does a smartphone-based digital therapeutic intervention designed to deliver suicide-focused cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) reduce future suicide attempts among patients hospitalized with acutely elevated suicide risk? In this randomized clinical trial of 339 inpatients in psychiatric hospitals, no difference was found in time to first actual suicide attempt between those who used the digital therapeutic intervention and those who used the control application. The digital therapeutic intervention did not impact time to first suicide attempt after discharge among patients admitted for suicidal ideation and/or suicide attempts.Publisher's note: As AI is studied in healthcare, it's interesting to explore both what works and what doesn't.

Risky prescribing and the epidemic of deaths from fallsJAMA Health Forum; Thomas A. Farley; 8/25In 2023, more than 41,000 individuals older than 65 years died from falls. More importantly, the mortality rate for falls among older adults in the US has more than tripled during the past 30 years. Drugs that cause drowsiness or impaired balance or coordination have been called fall risk–increasing drugs (FRIDs). The list of FRIDs is long and includes drugs such as β-blockers and anticholinergics, as well as proton pump inhibitors that may increase the risk of an injury during a fall. Four categories (opioids, benzodiazepines, gabapentinoids, and antidepressants) of central nervous system–active FRIDs are particularly concerning because of a combination of surging use and a strong association with falls.