Literature Review

Help Serenity Hospice workers win their unionSEIU503; 4/18/24Workers at Serenity Hospice have been organizing for pay equity, adequate raises, affordable health care, regular hours, PTO, and the ability to manage trauma and compassion fatigue. The workers unanimously decided to form a union, and asked management to voluntarily recognize them. Serenity’s parent company (Addus Healthcare) already has SEIU-represented employees at its home health agency in Eugene. Instead, Addus hired one of the most expensive union-busing law firms in the country, and has been paying them hundreds of dollars per hour to spread anti-union propaganda. Workers are sticking together and staying strong, and plan to vote YES in their union election next week. Editor's Note: Hospice & Palliative Care Today's posting of this article denotes neither support nor opposition to this action. Rather, we are reporting it for hospice and palliative care leadership awareness. Unions and strikes among healthcare professionals--for these same cited reasons--continue to be a growing trend, nationwide.

Remote access technologies expose home care firms to cybersecurity vulnerabilities, experts sayMcKnights Home Care, by Adam Healy; 4/18/24 Some of the most commonly used technologies in home care are also among the easiest for criminals to exploit. ... Remote access systems include any technology that allows users to connect to and access a computer, server or network remotely. Within home care, this could be tools such as remote patient monitoring devices, secure messaging apps, telehealth platforms, cloud-based applications or systems that allow users to remotely access patient data, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. And while these technologies bring efficiency, they can also expose providers and their patients to risk.

Connecticut home care safety bill would create administrative burdens, hospices sayMcKnights Home Care, by Adam Healy; 4/19/24 Some hospices are fighting to be carved out of a Connecticut state bill that would impose stricter safety policies for home-based healthcare providers. The legislation’s burdensome administrative requirements could affect patient care, they argue. ...  The bill’s introduction comes only months after a visiting nurse was killed on the job while providing care through a Connecticut home care agency. ... By the time a hospice could produce background checks and safety reports for a client, it may be too late to provide effective treatment, according to Barbara Pearce, chief executive officer of Connecticut Hospice.Editor's Note: For more information, see the articles we posted on 

Summaries: FFY 2025 Hospice, Inpatient Rehabilitation Facility, Skilled-Nursing Facility Medicare Payment Rules California Hospital Association, 4/17/24 What’s happening: Summaries of the hospice wage index, inpatient rehabilitation facility (IRF) prospective payment system (PPS), and skilled-nursing facility (SNF) PPS proposed rules are now available.What else to know: Comments on the proposed rules are due by May 28. The members-only summaries, from Health Policy Alternatives, Inc., describe proposals for the post-acute care Medicare prospective payment systems for federal fiscal year 2025: 

'Speak Up & Speak Out,' LeadingAge members head to the Hill on Lobby Day 2024 HomeCare; 4/18/24 Senator Mike Braun (R-IN) joined Katie Smith Sloan, president and CEO of LeadingAge, and hundreds of the association’s nonprofit and mission-driven members for the kick-off of annual Lobby Day activities. More than 225 LeadingAge members, who serve older adults and families nationwide in a range of care settings and community types, ... headed to Capitol Hill on Wednesday, April 17 ...  [Leading Age members] visited their elected officials in the House and Senate to discuss critical aging services issues to ensure older adults and families can access the care and services they need to age with dignity, including [but not limited to]: 

CT Hospice says it can’t provide home care under bill to protect healthcare workersCT News Junkie, by John Ferraro; 4/16/24Connecticut Hospice has warned lawmakers it will be unable to care for gravely ill patients in their homes under a proposed law aimed at protecting home healthcare workers. At issue is Senate Bill 1, which would require organizations that care for people in their homes to conduct background checks on the clients and anyone in the location where care is being given. ... Barbara Pearce, the chief executive officer of Connecticut Hospice, urged lawmakers to remove Connecticut Hospice from entities that would be required to conduct those background checks, noting that the organization which provides end-of-life care is typically called into homes when a patient has days left to live. “Our national hospice organization could find no similar bill in any other state,” Pearce wrote in testimony to the Public Health Committee. “This bill is too broad, too unclear as to requirements, not guaranteed to achieve its aims, duplicative of other procedures required in hospice care, and contradictory to certain regulations of Medicare.” ...Editor's Note: See the previous article in our newsletter today, After death of nurses, CT lawmakers look for solutions: 'We just cannot ignore that risk'.

NHPCO's CaringInfo program launches new consumer blog, insights NHPCO Press Release; 4/15/24 CaringInfo, a program of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO), has launched a new consumer blog, Insights, offering timely and practical content on serious-illness care and services from a variety of perspectives in both English and Spanish. ... CaringInfo also offers more information about advance directives and free advance directives and instructions for all 50 states plus Puerto Rico and Washington DC in both English and Spanish, downloadable as PDF files.

Message-based telehealth an increasingly important part of seniors’ healthcare, study findsMcKnights Senior Living, by Aaron Dorman; 4/11/24 Many healthcare experts, and even government agencies, are working to try to expand telehealth coverage for older adults. But much of that work considers telehealth in terms of video and/or phone conversations. E-mails and digital messaging across patient portals, however, also are part of seniors’ healthcare regimen, particularly those who are Medicare beneficiaries, finds a new study published in Health Affairs Scholar. As such, updated telehealth coverage decisions should factor in the time that older adults, their caregivers and clinicians need to exchange these messages, the researchers said.

‘Are nursing homes our only option?’ These centers offer older adults an alternative. Rhode Island Current, by Anna Claire Vollers; 4/12/24PACE centers attract bipartisan interest and, in some states, scrutiny. ... PACE (Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly) centers provide government-funded medical care and social services to people older than 55 whose complex medical needs qualify them for nursing home care, but who can live at home with the right sort of help. ... Nationally, PACE centers are owned by a variety of health care organizations, including nonprofits, for-profit companies, large health care systems and religious organizations. ... [The] explosive growth has come with challenges ...

Mayo Clinic Minute: Creating an advance directive for your future well-being

New paper outlines Draft Code of Conduct to ensure that the use of AI in health and health care meets its full potential reliably and safelyNational Academy of Medicine; 4/8/24 While AI holds immense promise for revolutionizing health care and improving health outcomes, it is not without significant risk. ... A new NAM Perspectives Commentary outlines a draft framework for achieving accurate, safe, reliable, and ethical AI advancements that can transform health, health care, and biomedical science. ... The NAM Leadership Consortium is seeking input from stakeholders on the Code Principles and Commitments to ensure responsible and equitable use of AI in health, health care, and biomedical science. Share your experiences and feedback ... Participate in the survey.

AHA seeks federal probe of MultiPlan, insurers Modern Healthcare, by Michael McAuliff; 4/9/24 The American Hospital Association wants the Labor Department to investigate the analytics company MultiPlan and its large insurer clients to determine whether they engage in business practices that disadvantage patients and providers. According to a New York Times investigation published Sunday, MultiPlan and customers such as UnitedHealth Group subsidiary UnitedHealthcare, CVS Health subsidiary Aetna and Cigna boost their finances by dispensing low payments to out-of-network providers and burdening patients with large bills.