Literature Review

Chronic loneliness can raise stroke risk in older adults, findings show McKnights Long-Term Care News; by Kristen Fischer; 6/24/24 A new study links loneliness to stroke risk, showing that those who are regularly lonesome have a 56% higher risk for stroke than those who are more socially connected. Situational loneliness wasn’t linked to a higher risk for stroke, which indicates that the stroke risk stems from chronic loneliness. Investigators led by a team from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health published their report Monday in eClinicalMedicine. Research has already linked loneliness to an increased risk for cardiovascular disease. The new report is one of the first to evaluate the association between loneliness and stroke risk.

NIH: Hot weather safety for older adults OSHA: Heat - Working in outdoor and indoor heat environmentsOSHA - Occupational Safety and Health Administration; retrieved from their website 6/18/24 

Addus to buy Gentiva’s personal care assets for $350 million Home Health Care News; by Andrew Donlan; 6/10/24 Addus HomeCare Corp. is set to acquire Gentiva’s personal care assets for about $350 million.Those assets amount to over 16,000 home care patients per day, in Arizona, Arkansas, California, Missouri, North Carolina, Tennessee and Texas. Addus – which just left the state of New York – will fund the acquisition through its existing revolving credit facility. “We believe this acquisition is a great strategic fit for Addus, and we are excited about the opportunity to expand our personal care market coverage in seven states, including Texas and Missouri, which are new markets for Addus,” Addus CEO Dirk Allison said. ... Addus currently provides home care, home health care and hospice services to over 49,000 consumers through 214 locations spanning 22 states.

NYCHA, HPD and HDC celebrate completion of nearly 200 units of senior housing in Bed-Stuy New York Law School; by Veronica Rose; 5/28/24 On May 23, 2024, the New York City Housing Authority, the Department of Housing Preservation and Development and the New York City Housing Development Corporation celebrated the completion of the Atrium at Sumner project, a new eleven-story residence for seniors. ... Of these 190 units, 57 apartments have been reserved for seniors who formerly experienced homelessness, and 132 apartments are available to senior households at 50 percent area median income or less. ... On-site social services will be provided through Selfhelp’s Active Services for Aging Model with voluntary social work support for individual residents and a Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE Center) on the ground floor open to residents. 

Transformative peer connections: Early experiences from the ASCO Palliative Care Community of Practice American Society of Clinical Oncology; by Mazie Tsang, Cristiane Bergerot, Natasha Dhawan, Rushil Patel, Darcy Burbage, Tingting Zhang, Jafar Al-Mondhiry, Joseph McCollom, Ramy Sedhom; 5/22/24 online ahead of print in June 2024  ... there are barriers to implementing palliative oncology at many institutions for myriad reasons. ... In this article, we discuss an innovative strategy that ASCO implemented called the Communities of Practice (CoP). We share our experiences as the Palliative Care CoP and how our group seeks to develop processes and structures to collectively promote systemic change and enhance palliative care delivery for people with cancer. Our Palliative Care CoP engages with senior leaders, administrators, and those in power to achieve a shared vision of delivering holistic health care for people with serious illness. ... [We address] eight main domains:

Tuesday Health launches revolutionary Supportive Care solution with $60 million of strategic investment from healthcare leadersInvestors Observier; by PR Newswire; 5/21/24Tuesday Health, a pioneer in value-based care dedicated to transforming serious illness, has launched its innovative supportive care solution in partnership with Valtruis, Blue Venture Fund, Mass General Brigham Ventures , and CareSource. This alliance brings a $60 million strategic investment to Tuesday Health, fueling its mission to redefine supportive care for patients and caregivers facing serious illnesses. "Leveraging clinical expertise, advanced data solutions, and cutting-edge technology, while partnering with Ohio's largest Medicaid plan, its largest hospice provider and the unmatched palliative care experience of Mass General, Tuesday Health is dedicated to tackling one of healthcare's biggest challenges-providing support and care in the right setting, at the right time, for those facing serious illness", said Jim Wieland, CEO of Tuesday Health.Editor's Note: What is the difference between supportive care and palliative care? Click here for a description from ASCO, the American Society of Clinical Oncology. 

‘Great Resignation’ becomes ‘Great Reshuffle’ of American jobsMcKnight's Senior Living; by Kathleen Steele Gaivin; 5/16/24After a record number of workers left their jobs in the early part of the decade in what was known as the “Great Resignation,” the American workforce has entered a period now dubbed the “Great Reshuffle,” according to the World Economic Forum. “While quit rates remain high, hiring rates continue to outpace them as many workers have been transitioning to other jobs in search of an improved work-life balance and flexibility, increased compensation, or a strong company culture,” the US Chamber of Commerce reported.

[Honoring Nurses Week] Too many nurses are being assaulted. Some say they are being blamed for the attacks. Chief Healthcare Executive; by Ron Southwick; 5/9/24 With disturbing regularity, nurses in hospitals and other healthcare settings are being physically assaulted and verbally harassed. More than half of emergency nurses say they’ve been assaulted or threatened within the past 30 days, according to the Emergency Nurses Association. In a separate study, researchers found that healthcare workers faced at least one violent or aggressive incident for every 40 hours worked, according to findings published by The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety. With the observance of National Nursing Week, the increased violence in healthcare can’t be ignored. Nursing leaders say the regular exposure to violence or threatening behavior is one factor adding to stress and burnout of nurses and, in some cases, spurring them to seek new jobs.

Big Bend Hospice, Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare Partner on transformative approach to transitional careBusiness Wire; 5/2/24 Big Bend Hospice (BBH) and Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare (TMH) announced a partnership today to improve patient navigation within the healthcare system. This collaboration aims to streamline transitions between hospitals, doctor's offices, rehabilitation centers, and home care. The signing of the Affiliation Agreement creates a governance structure that will develop a transformative approach to improving transitions of care in the Big Bend community. Transitions of care involve a patient's movement between healthcare settings, such as doctor's offices, hospitals, rehabilitation centers, long-term care, home health, hospice, etc. This partnership establishes a network of connected healthcare services, creating a seamless patient journey regardless of specific needs.

Prioritizing patient care: Medical technology innovations on the horizon MedCityNews; by Dhaval Shah; 5/1/24 The MedTech industry is poised for breakthroughs, owing to the rapid integration of digital ecosystems and technologies like AI and cloud. 2023 was a banner year for MedTech, especially in terms of technological innovations. Incidentally, it also witnessed the largest ever number of FDA approvals on novel medical devices in a single year. This list included a number of AI-enabled MedTech products, among others. ... Three key areas are continuing to shape the industry: 

Policymakers should support patients over profits in Louisiana Louisiana Illuminator; by Kathy Oubre; 4/29/24... The need for more affordable access to treatment and care is not only real for cancer patients, but also for all Louisianans, with U.S. News and World Report ranking Louisiana in the bottom five states for health care in the country. ... [LA] Senate Bill 347 would require pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) and insurance companies to share the savings they receive from negotiated rebates and discounts directly with patients at the point-of-sale, lowering out-of-pocket costs. These rebates and discounts are significant, totaling over $230 billion in 2021 alone. 

$1 billion class action settlement will trigger transition of 2,400 nursing home residents to other settingsMcKnights Senior LIving, by Kimberly Bonvissuto; 4/19/24The $1 billion settlement of a class action lawsuit has the potential to see 2,400 Massachusetts nursing home residents move into other residential and community settings in the next decade. The options include assisted living communities, although state senior living experts say that it’s unlikely many of those transitions will be to assisted living. The state agreed to settle the suit, initially filed in 2022 by six disabled nursing homes residents who argued that a lack of state resources “trapped” them in nursing homes despite their wishes to return to community-based care settings.