Literature Review

Healthcare doesn’t need forward deployed engineers. It needs forward deployed operators. HIT Consultant; by Frederik Mueller; 9/22/26 The forward deployed engineer model, embraced across enterprise technology, is built on a seductive assumption: that the gap between a technology’s potential and its adoption is primarily a technical gap. A missing integration. A misconfigured workflow. A feature not yet built. Fix the code, and the organization will follow. In most industries, that assumption is partially right. In healthcare, it is almost entirely wrong. In part, healthcare organizations contribute to the problem because most evaluate technology vendors the same flawed way. They audit the roadmap, assess the integrations, and negotiate the contract. They rarely ask enough how the vendor will be embedded in their operations after go-live, and what discipline that ongoing partnership requires. 

The critical competencies hospice leaders must build for value-based care cuccess | part one Teleios Collaborative Network (TCN); podcast hosted by Chris Comeaux with Dr. Jessica Hubbs; 9/16/26 Value-based care isn’t just changing how hospice gets paid—it’s redefining what hospice leaders must be capable of delivering. In Part One of The Critical Competencies Hospice Leaders Must Build for Value-Based Care Success, host Chris Comeaux sits down with Dr. Jessica Hubbs, Chief Clinical Officer at Advanced Care Innovations, to explore the accelerating shift from fee-for-service healthcare toward models built around outcomes, total cost of care, and coordinated care delivery.  Dr. Hubbs explains why emerging models such as LEAD (Long-term Enhanced ACO Design) matter to hospice and palliative care leaders—and why the movement upstream into serious illness and home-based care could represent both a competitive headwind and an extraordinary opportunity.

2027 trends to watch: Distributed care will drive the next phase of healthcare delivery Definitive Healthcare; by Ethan Popowitz; 9/17/26 Healthcare delivery has never been confined to a single setting. But the number of places where patients can receive care, and the range of services available outside the hospital, have grown in recent years. Today, a single patient journey might include a primary care visit, diagnostic imaging at an outpatient center, a procedure at an ambulatory surgery center (ASC), a virtual follow-up, and remote monitoring from home. ... This more distributed model of healthcare delivery is being shaped by several forces at once, from advances in medical technology and economic pressures to workforce shortages and more. 

The strategic trifecta: Aligning AI, data and cybersecurity for real outcomes McKnights Senior Living; by Adam Arker; 9/16/26 The use of artificial intelligence is the No. 1 topic in the senior living industry these days, and for good reason. AI is positioned to transform our world more than any previous technological revolution, including both electricity and the internet. ... If there’s one takeaway, it’s this: The goal for senior living providers related to AI should be to build the data discipline and security foundation that lets AI work safely, consistently and at scale. Organizations that get those fundamentals right will move faster in the long run, and they’ll be able to adopt new tools with confidence instead of constantly starting over and losing money on failed experiments.

Hospice Insights Podcast - Getting ahead of the curve: how hospice providers can build smart AI practices, part 1 JD Supra; by Husch Blackwell LLP; 9/16/26 AI tools are already showing up in hospice operations whether organizations have formal policies for them or not—and the compliance and liability questions are emerging just as quickly. In this two-part series, Husch Blackwell’s Bryan Nowicki and Taylor Crossley break down what the legal exposure looks like across clinical documentation, vendor relationships, and billing, and they take hospice leaders through concrete steps for building AI governance to stay ahead of associated risks.

Before you sign that AI contract: 7 questions every healthcare CFO should ask MedCity News; by Purnendu Bala; 8/25/26 Every healthcare CFO’s inbox now has an AI-in-RCM pitch in it. The promises are consistent: lower denial rates, faster collections, leaner overhead. What’s inconsistent is the due diligence behind the decision to buy. Most of these deals are still evaluated like traditional software purchases: features, price, timeline. That framework misses what actually determines whether an AI investment pays off or becomes a costly write-off eighteen months later: data readiness, workforce redesign, and governance exposure that never show up on a vendor’s feature sheet. Before approving a budget for AI in revenue cycle management, CFOs should be asking seven specific questions, and most vendors are hoping they won’t.

Hospice nurses at Minnesota-based Allina Health vote to authorize 7-day unfair labor practice strike CBS News Minnesota; by Nicholas Lentz; 8/24/26 Hospice nurses who work for Minnesota-based Allina Health have voted to authorize a seven-day unfair labor practice strike, the union representing them said on Monday. According to Service Employees International Union Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa, all workers who cast a ballot on Friday voted in favor of the strike. The authorization comes amid negotiations to reach a first contract that have been happening for more than a year, SEIU said. Members allege Allina Health is opposed to "creating a fair compensation system that would give nurses extra pay for extra work"  and refuses to pay salaried registered nurses a holiday premium when they are required to work on holidays. The union added that the company also doesn't allow hospice nurses to flex their schedules.

Getting accurate AI insights securely with a certified HIPAA data access layer CDATA; by Mohammed Mohsin Turki; 8/18/26 If your organization creates, receives, maintains, or transmits protected health information (PHI), it inherits HIPAA’s compliance obligations. That’s true the moment PHI flows to an AI system or agent instead of the staff who used to handle it, whether that AI is a pilot, a proof of concept, or a model that’s “just reading” records. Most healthcare AI projects stall at the same point. The data still lives in systems that were never built with AI access in mind. A HIPAA-compliant AI data access layer fixes that before the model ever sees ePHI. This blog covers how to choose a HIPAA-compliant AI data access layer that keeps insights accurate, plus the new risks AI adds that older security programs miss. 

4 things healthcare leaders should do before their next AI rollout Forbes; by Amanda Eisel; 7/31/26 ​Talk to enough leaders across healthcare right now and you'll hear the same pattern. Someone raises the topic of AI. The room leans forward. Pilots are funded and launched. Six months later, the honest postmortem says some version of the same thing: The technology worked, but the adoption didn't. The gap is human, not technical. And in healthcare, where sensitive data and regulated workflows raise the stakes on every decision, that gap doesn’t just slow a rollout. It costs trust that takes years to rebuild. Healthcare doesn’t need more AI. It needs a people-led strategy that comes before the technology decision, not after it. ...

Key trends and implications in healthcare AI adoption FTI Consulting; 8/11/26... In partnership with Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (“HIMSS”), FTI Consulting conducted a detailed assessment of health system perspectives1 and AI utilization to better understand how organizations are navigating this rapidly evolving landscape and where meaningful value is actually being realized. ... Figure 1: Three-Quarters of Healthcare Leaders Believe AI Will Fundamentally Change Care Delivery in the Next Few Years; Many Also Believe AI Has the Potential To Materially Reduce the Costs of Delivering Healthcare. ...Figure 2: What Are the Most Important Objectives Driving Your Organization’s Investments in Artificial Intelligence Technologies? ...Figure 3: Thinking About the Areas in Which Your Organization Has Implemented AI, Which Have Delivered the Strongest Results in Helping You Achieve Each of the Following Objectives? ... Figure 4: Example Value Prioritization Framework for AI Implementation in Healthcare Source: FTI Consulting ...

[England] 'Magical' hospice unit opens after £16m revamp BBC News, West Yorkshire, England; by Cara Thorpe and Jack Conlon; 8/4/26  A new hospice facility which aims to "transform" the care given to patients and their families has opened its doors in West Yorkshire. The £15.8m inpatient unit at Overgate Hospice in Elland has taken two years to build after a previous eight years of planning. ... The new hospice building includes:

Concordia Hospice of Washington Donnell House closes Observer-Reporter, Washington, PA; by Karen Mansfield; 8/3/26 For nearly 25 years, Concordia Hospice of Washington Donnell House has helped patients and their families through life’s hardest moments. Now, the hospice facility in Washington has closed its doors. “Concordia Hospice of Washington can confirm that inpatient hospice services are no longer being provided at the Donnell House,” the company said in a statement. “This change reflects a continuing decline in the need for inpatient hospice care as more patients and families choose to receive hospice services in the comfort of home, supported by advances in community-based care.” The hospice team continues to provide in-home care and support to patients and families throughout the region, according to a spokesman.