Literature Review

Care Guide Partners PACE Center secures $500,000 grantThe News-Enterprise; 2/14/24Care Guide Partners, an affiliate of Hosparus Health, recently was awarded a $500,000 lead grant from the Legacy Foundation of Kentuckiana. This contribution supports the launch of the Care Guide Partners PACE Center, at 109 Buffalo Creek Drive in Elizabethtown. Scheduled to open next quarter, the PACE Center will increase accessibility to comprehensive health care services for seniors in and around the region, a news release from the organization said.

Tier - Palliative Care: A population-based care delivery model to match evolving patient needs to palliative care services for community-based patients with heart failure or cancer [This link goes to the more detailed National Institutes of Health (NIH) description of this clinical trial.]Genomics & Genetics Daily, by a news reporter-staff news editor; 2/14/24Staff editors report on the newly launched clinical trial, NCT06228209, which has the following summary description: "TIER-PC is an adaptive model of delivering palliative care that provides the right level of care to the right patients at the right time. It represents an adaption of the Mount Sinai PALLIATIVE CARE AT HOME (PC@H) program, which delivers home-based palliative care. TIER-PC increases the number and intensity of disciplines added to the patient's care team as their symptoms worsen and function declines."

Advance planning values and end-of-life care among patients on dialysisdocwirenews, by Victoria Socha; 2/12/24... Patients treated with dialysis are also more likely to die in the hospital and less likely to receive hospice care. [Researchers] conducted a survey designed to examine the association between patients’ health care values and engagement in advance care planning and end-of-life care. Analyses of survey responses were reported in JAMA Internal Medicine.

Understanding the discordance about prognosis between clinicians and terminally ill patients and their surrogatesThe ASCO Post, by Jo Cavallo; 2/14/24A Conversation with Douglas B. White, MD, MASResearch shows that about half of adults near the end of life in the United States are too ill to participate in decisions about whether to accept life-prolonging treatment, requiring family members and other proxies to serve as surrogate decision-makers for their critically ill loved ones. However, research also shows that surrogates of patients with advanced illness often have optimistic expectations about prognosis, which often lead to the increased use of invasive treatment (including life support) in dying patients and delays in the integration of palliative care.

Scandal exposes flaws in Iowa elderly care system: Stricter hiring protocols neededBNN, by Mahnoor Jehangir; 2/12/24[Two recent] cases ... reveal the urgent need for stricter hiring protocols in Iowa's elderly care system. ... In 2023, an Iowa nursing home and a hospice program found themselves in the crosshairs of a scandal that exposed the vulnerabilities of the elderly care system. The facilities ... had unwittingly hired individuals with troubling histories. [One] had a criminal record for felony theft of $25,00 or more; [the other] was listed on Nebraska's registry of abusers of the elderly.

What the 4-day workweek looks like in healthcareBecker's Hospital Review, by Kelly Gooch; 2/7/24When it comes to a four-day workweek, the arguments for and against such an approach are varied, and its use depends on the industry and role. However, one thing is clear: There is data pointing to a growing trend.

Could Illinois become a ‘right to die' state? The latest on a newly proposed billNBC 5 Chicago; 2/13/24A newly introduced bill in Illinois could make the state the latest so-called "right to die" state in the U.S., if it is passed. The proposed legislation, SB3499, would create end-of-life options for the Terminally Ill Patients Act in Illinois.

NJ's 'medical aid-in-dying' law upheld by state Supreme Court Public News Service, by Roz Brown; 2/13/24After a five-year court battle, New Jersey's medical aid-in-dying law has been affirmed by the state's Supreme Court, which rejected an attempt to overturn the statute. Signed by the governor in 2019, the law was soon challenged by a physician based on religious, personal and constitutional grounds. It allows mentally capable, terminally ill adults with six months or less to live to get a prescription they can use to end their lives.

10 of the largest US healthcare companies by revenue - 2024Becker's Hospital Review, by Laura Dyrda; 2/9/24Below is a list ranking 10 of the largest healthcare copmanies, including health plans and systems, by revenue over the most recent four quarters.

Private equity Medicare Advantage investment slumps: reportModern Healthcare, by Nona Tepper; 2/13/24Private equity investment in Medicare Advantage has declined in recent years amid rising interest rates and an unfavorable regulatory environment, according to a report the Private Equity Stakeholder Project published Tuesday.

Changes in hospice care experiences during the COVID-19 pandemicRand, Journal of the American Geriatrics Society; by Maria DeYoreo, Rebecca Anhang Price, Ann C. Haas, Anagha Alka Tolpadi, Joan M. Teno, Marc N. Elliott; 2/12/24Demand for hospice and palliative care services increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. Hospices strove to meet this demand despite staffing shortages and visitation restrictions that sometimes prevented family members and hospice staff from visiting patients in institutional settings such as nursing homes, assisted living facilities, and hospitals. We examine how the COVID-19 pandemic may have influenced the characteristics of patients receiving hospice care, the settings in which they received care, and their care experiences using national data from the Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) Hospice Survey. The survey is completed by bereaved family caregivers following the death of the hospice patient, and is the national standard for assessing patient- and family-centeredness of hospice care.