Literature Review

Trends in Pediatric Palliative Care Research (TPPCR) 2025; Issue #2 Siden Research Team; Commentary by Kim Mooney-Doyle, MD; 3/6/25Kim Mooney-Doyle – University of Maryland School of Nursing, MD, USA: I am a nurse scientist dedicated to advancing family health in serious pediatric illness. I have studied parent-sibling relationships and the social ecological factors that impact it for the past decade. ... Siblings are special and, too often, invisible in the care of seriously ill children, adolescents, and young adults. Two articles in this month’s collection bring the needs and experiences of siblings into focus using a family lens. A key take-away from this important work is that while siblings want to communicate with their parents about their brother’s or sister’s illness, it can be hard to initiate such conversations. As clinicians and researchers, we can work with families to devise strategies that foster these conversations, such as providing prompts or a scripted conversation guide to help a parent engage the sibling.  

J-Sei Home closes after 30 years, leaving Bay Area Japanese seniors in need KQED, San Francisco, CA; by Cecilia Lei; 3/10/25 ... For decades, Bay Area Japanese American families have sought culturally sensitive senior care facilities like J-Sei Home for aging loved ones. Community members said that about a decade ago, there were approximately 10 Japanese senior care homes in the region. Today, that number has declined by about half. The most recent closure came in January, when the last residents of J-Sei Home moved out, and the facility permanently closed its doors after 30 years of operation. A majority of the displaced residents were Japanese Americans in their 90s and had cognitive impairment. ... They had tender caregivers who spoke Japanese. They ate familiar comfort foods like miso soup and pickled vegetables, and they participated in daily activities such as drum circles and singing Japanese songs. ...

Local pharmacist advising Ohio health director on palliative care Herald-Star, Steubenville, OH; by Christopher Dacanay; 3/10/25 A local pharmacist hopes to “expand utilization” of palliative care in Jefferson County and increase patients’ quality of life from her new position as an adviser to the Ohio Department of Health director. Steubenville resident Mary Mihalyo, doctor of pharmacy, was appointed Dec. 10 to the Palliative Care and Quality of Life Interdisciplinary Council. Bringing her own expertise, Mihalyo joins a diverse, 20-person group of professionals with experience in the provision of palliative care. ... Mihalyo, who founded Steubenville’s A&B Pharmacy with her husband, is the former CEO of Delta Care Rx LLC. She now serves as chief clinical officer for the company, which has been rebranded as Dragonfly Health. ... Her professional work, since [1999], has focused on serving hospice and palliative care patients locally and nationally as part of interdisciplinary teams. ... [Council members] ... actively consult with and advise the director on palliative care initiatives in the state, identify standards of practice, pinpoint initiatives at the state or national level integrating palliative care into the healthcare system and developing its practice and lay out patient identification guidelines for health care providers.

‘The weekend effect’: If you’re planning surgery, doctors say you should think twice about Fridays DailyDot.com; by Ilana Gordon; 3/7/25 Everybody’s working for the weekend, which, according to a new study, is incidentally the worst time of the week to undergo surgery. A paper published in the JAMA Network on March 4, 2025, concludes that patients experience worse outcomes during the weekends, as compared to weekdays. This phenomenon is known as the “weekend effect” and the study, which examined 429,691 patients in Ontario, Canada, determined that people whose surgeries began directly before the weekend “experienced a statistically significant increase in the composite outcome of death, complications, and readmissions at 30 days, 90 days, and 1 year.” 

The Medical Minute: Measles cases rising in the US, what you can do PennState, Hershey, PA; 3/6/25 A case of measles in a child was confirmed in Montgomery County on March 2 ─ the first reported case in the state in 2025. Nationwide, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has reported 164 measles cases in nine states. Texas alone has seen at least 140 cases since late January, including one unvaccinated child who died. Measles is a preventable, highly contagious, airborne virus that can cause serious health complications, including death, especially in children under 5, said Dr. George McSherry, division chief of pediatric infectious diseases at Penn State Health Children’s Hospital. “Measles is a very serious illness. It’s one of the most infectious of the infectious diseases,” McSherry said. “If you put a person with measles in a room with 100 unimmunized people, 90 will get it.” Click on the title's link for more important information. 

In loving memory of the hour we lost ... I'll drink 2 cups of coffee at the same time. ~ UnknownHappy (?) Daylight Saving Time

At the end of life, doctors’ actions and patients’ wishes may be misaligned, according to a Rutgers Health study Rutgers; by Greg Bruno; 2/28/25 For terminally ill cancer patients, the final days of life are immensely personal, having the choice to continue cancer treatments, or to stop treatments and prioritize a more comfortable passing. What a patient wants, however, isn’t always what they receive, according to a Rutgers Health study published in the journal Cancer. “A patient's end of life is often not a reflection of what they want, but rather, who their oncologist happens to be,” said Login S. George, a health services researcher at the Rutgers Institute for Health, Health Care Policy and Aging Research, and lead author of the national study. “The data doesn’t indicate patient-centered treatment decisions, but rather, more habitual or default ways of treating patients,” says George, who is also a member of the Cancer Prevention and Control Program at Rutgers Cancer Institute, the state’s only National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center. ... [Click on the title's link for more statistics, insights, and recommendations.]

Mahogany CEO: Hospice on cusp of ‘tremendous revolution’Hospice News; by Holly Vossel; 3/7/25 Mahogany Home Health and Hospice recently launched services in southwestern Ohio. The new hospice startup is the first Black-owned hospice and home health organization statewide with a drive to improve utilization among underserved populations. This is according to Victor Couzens, owner, founder and CEO of Mahogany Home Health and Hospice. The organization recently received a green light from state licensing agencies to begin serving Cincinnati and Dayton, Ohio and surrounding communities. ... Couzens recently told Hospice News, ... "As a hospice chaplain, I was often confronted with the pressure of trying to fit a square peg into a round hole when it comes to how underserved communities are actually reached and cared for. It’s about offering insights, or even evidence-based approaches, to meeting the needs of Black and brown people, the needs of the LGBTQ+ community, the needs of immigrants and just any other groups who do not make up the majority of the patient population. ..."

"The hospice heart": Hospice industry battles misconceptions, staffing shortages as expectations grow Pharos-Tribune, Logansport, IN; by  Josh Flynn Pharos; 3/9/25 ... There are a lot of misconceptions about hospice care and one of the largest is that entering hospice care is equal to giving up. ...Hospice care is one of the fastest growing industries as the Baby Boomer generation continues to age. The hospice care industry was valued at $34.5 billion in 2022 and is expected to grow in value to $67.7 billion by 2030. But misconceptions about hospice care and nursing shortages could threaten that future success. ... Maria Rogers is the public relations liaison at Guardian Angel Hospice in Logansport and she has devoted herself to tackling the misconceptions that surround hospice care. ... “You don’t have to be actively passing away to receive our services,” Rogers said. ... Jennifer Edwards, executive director of Heart to Heart in Mishawaka and Logansport, said many families don’t understand the role of medicine in hospice care. While something like chemotherapy would be discontinued, a hospice staff would never discontinue medications or fail to treat new problems that came up. ...

Report finds those with Parkinson’s have unmet hospice needsMcKnights Long-Term Care News; by Kristen Fischer; 3/6/25 Hospice use varies depending on whether a person has Parkinson’s disease, Lewy body dementia or Alzheimer’s disease and those with Parkinson’s may have more unmet needs, a new study finds. Researchers evaluated data on 11,327,324 Medicare beneficiaries enrolled in hospice between 2010 and 2020 as part of their study, which was published Tuesday in JAMA Network Open. ... Hospice enrollees who had Parkinson’s disease and dementia with Lewy bodies were less likely to be disenrolled from hospice due to extended prognosis compared to those with Alzheimer’s disease. People who had Parkinson’s disease but not dementia with Lewy bodies were more apt to have longer stays over 180 days and turn hospice away compared to those with Alzheimer’s disease. (Short stays were defined as those less than seven days.)

Social Media Toolkit for Social Work Month 2025 NASW National Association of Social Workers; by NASW; for March 2025 Celebrate Social Work Month 2025! People enter the social work profession because they genuinely care about other people. However, social workers have the education, training, and expertise to empower people so they can live to their full potential. That is why this year’s theme is Social Work: Compassion + Action. Here are our suggestions to help you share information about the positive work social workers do during Social Work Month 2025 and beyond.

748 hospitals at risk of closure, state by state Becker's Hospital CFO Report; by Molly Gamble; 3/6/25 Nearly 750 rural U.S. hospitals are at risk of closure due to financial problems, with nearly half of those hospitals at immediate risk of closure. The count of 748 at-risk rural hospitals comes from the latest analysis from the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform, which is based on CMS' most recent hospital financial information. The center's analysis reveals two distinct levels of vulnerability among rural healthcare facilities: risk of closure and immediate risk of closure. In the first category, nearly every state has hospitals at risk of closure, measured by financial reserves that can cover losses on patient services for only six to seven years. In over half the states, 25% or more of rural hospitals face this risk, with 11 states having a majority of their rural hospitals in jeopardy. [Click on the title's link for the list.]Editor's note: On July 5, 2024, we posted from the same source (Becker's Hospital CFO Report) that "Since January 2005, 192 rural hospitals have closed or converted ... Of those hospitals, 105 have completely closed, and 87 have converted, meaning the facilities no longer provide inpatient services, but continue to provide some services, such as primary care, skilled nursing care or long-term care. Since 2020, 36 hospitals have closed or converted. Find the list here. This jump in number is both dramatic and traumatic for our rural communities.