Literature Review

S.2287 - Palliative Care and Hospice Education and Training Act Congress.gov, 199th Congress (2025-2026); bill sponsored by Sen. Tammy Baldwin; introduced 7/15/25 Introduction: To amend the Public Health Service Act to increase the number of permanent faculty in palliative care at accredited allopathic and osteopathic medical schools, nursing schools and other programs, including social work, physician assistant, and chaplaincy education programs, to promote education and research in palliative care and hospice, and to support the development of faculty careers in academic palliative and hospice care. [Click on the title's link the full document.]

Filling the gaps with the loss of Wilshire Health and Community Services NBC KSBY-6, California's Central Coast; by Dylan Foreman; 7/22/25 At the end of June, the longtime medical service provider Wilshire Health and Community Services, which offered everything from hospice and home health care to community services like counseling and transportation, closed its doors, leaving clients looking for help elsewhere. ... [Services] like home health and hospice care are being transferred over to organizations like Dignity Health Home Health and Hospice Care, getting 50% of the patients from Wilshire and sending offers out to 30% of their staff. According to Wilshire, on any given day, they could have at least 250 clients.

Public welcomed inside Heather’s House, North Dakota’s 1st freestanding hospice Grand Forks Herald, Fargo, ND; by Robin Hueben and Michael McGurran; 7/22/25 The public is getting its first look inside North Dakota's first freestanding, inpatient hospice house. Several hundred people turned out for a program and open house at HIA Heather's House on Tuesday, July 22, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at 3800 56th Ave. S., Fargo, put on by HIA Health. The letters HIA stand for "hearts in action." HIA had previously been known as Hospice of the Red River Valley before changing its name in June. ... Nancy Andrews, president of the HIA Hospice Board, greeted the crowd on behalf of the board and the facility staff. "I welcome you to the grand opening of this sacred place — a place of peace, compassion and dignity," she said. [For more background, read our 4/23/24 post, Hospice of the Red River Valley celebrates milestone in Heather's House construction.]

CIOs’ tech wishlist: What IT leaders would buy with a blank check Becker's Health IT; by Naomi Diaz; 7/14/25 If hospital and health system CIOs had unlimited resources, where would they place their biggest technology bets? Becker’s asked several IT leaders: If you had a blank check to invest in one technology tomorrow, what would it be and why? [Only a few responses are listed here. Go to the source article for the IT leaders' name, organization, role, and answer.]

51 healthcare leaders’ takes on doing more with less Becker's Hospital Review; by Allie Woldenberg, Kelly Gooch, Mariah Taylor, Giles Bruce, Kristin Kuchno, and  Andrew Cass; 7/17/25 It’s a directive that hospitals and health systems of every size know well — whether sprawling academic medical centers, multistate nonprofit systems or rural, independent 25-bed hospitals. While the phrase isn’t new, the urgency behind it is intensifying. The nation’s healthcare workforce remains fragile, forcing leaders to distinguish between staffing gaps that are temporary hurdles or structural limitations. Revenue projections for health systems have shifted dramatically ... Against this backdrop, Becker’s set out to understand how health system leaders across the U.S. are interpreting and enacting the mandate to “do more with less” today. From June 9 to July 15, we spoke with executives across the country, in every type of market, hospital, and health system, to hear how they are navigating this evolving landscape. ...Editor's Note: Scan through these with a sharp eye toward improving the quality of patient care while "doing more with less." I applaud many of these leaders for not just focusing on cutting costs, but for using these crucial changes as a vehicle to improve patient care.

Carter, Bera introduce bill to strengthen palliative and hospice care workforce United States Representative Buddy Carter, Washington, DC; Press Release; 7/17/25Reps. Earl L. “Buddy” Carter (R-GA) and Ami Bera, M.D. (D-CA) today introduced the Palliative Care and Hospice Education and Training Act (PCHETA), bipartisan legislation to invest in training, education, and research for the palliative care and hospice workforce, allowing more practitioners to enter these in-demand fields. ... "As a pharmacist, I understand the toll burnout takes on the health care industry, and I am committed to bolstering the workforce so nurses, doctors, and all health care workers can continue to pursue their passion for helping others,” said Rep. Carter. "As a doctor, I know how important it is to provide patients with comfort, clarity, and support when they’re facing serious illness,” said Rep. Bera. “The Palliative Care and Hospice Education and Training Act is a smart, bipartisan step to ensure more health care professionals are trained to deliver this kind of care."Editor's Note: Bravo to this pharmacist and physician bipartisan team for introducing this bill. Go to the article and scroll down to this press release's long list of "Supporting Organizations."

Agrace opens western Wisconsin office in La Crosse WisBusiness, La Crosse, WI; Press Release; 7/16/25 Agrace continues its rapid growth across the state of Wisconsin with the opening of a new office in La Crosse, a western-Wisconsin city of 52,000 located along the Mississippi River. Since its founding in Madison, Wis., in 1978, Agrace has provided exceptional care for the state’s residents who are in the final months of life. The new Agrace location gives residents of La Crosse County greater choice for high-quality, in-home hospice care. County residents can enroll with Wisconsin’s largest nonprofit hospice to receive hospice care that comes to them where they live—in private homes, long-term care facilities or any other place they call home.

Silver tsunami brings new challenges for end-of-life care NPR Network, KANW New Mexico Public Radio; by Jenny Kinsey; 7/16/25 ... Inhora isn’t a hospice but it describes itself as a social model hospice house that provides a place to be. The nonprofit opened in April and contracts with several local hospice providers to provide end of life support. ... Inhora gets its support through donations and volunteer help which enables their guests to stay for free. That’s the idea behind Inhora, said Miles Gloetzner, RN, Inhora’s founder and Executive Director. ... Investigating the idea led him to the Omega Home Network, a national network of comfort care homes, and other communities with the same mission bringing comfort and caring to those at the end of life . That’s when he realized his dream was not his alone. A comfort care home or social model hospice house provides free room and board for patient/guests and a family member or friend while they receive hospice care. ... Comfort homes like Inhora are found across Mountain West states, including Colorado, Nevada, Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming. The idea isn’t new. For instance, the Omega Home Network was founded in 2003 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It is a national organization of 50 comfort care homes – and growing rapidly with 79 in development.

Hosparus Health plans to create end-of-life care center Spectrum News 1, Louisville/Lexington, KY; by Destinee Flowers; 7/16/25 Plans for Louisville’s first inpatient, standalone hospice care center are underway, as a part of Hosparus Health’s ongoing efforts to provide comfortable end-of-life care for seniors and their loved ones. ...  Tawanda Owsley, Hosparus Health chief development and marketing officer [described], "We will have a 21-bed, 10,000-square-foot unit ... [and that] the new facility will replace a traditional hospital setting with a warmer one while still providing high-level clinical care. It will have private rooms to accommodate family members, bathrooms in each care room, a chapel, kitchen, children’s room and an outdoor garden area. “[Our] healing garden will be a pathway from our inpatient care center to our grief counseling center," she said. ... This end-of-life care center is the third project in Hosparus Health’s “Places of Compassion” initiative, an action to modernize hospice care in anticipation of the aging Baby Boomer population.

With new facility, Mourning Dove Grief Care expands help for survivors of loss Oil City News, Casper, WY; by Dan Cepe; 7/16/25 Death can be natural, or it can be cruel and unexpected. It is, however, an inevitable part of the human experience that can affect survivors in countless ways possibly for the remainder of their lives. ... Mourning Dove Grief Care, a service by Central Wyoming Hospice & Transitions, aims to provide that help to members of the community.  ... The [new] facility will allow anyone in the community suffering from loss to walk in and schedule appointments or join a support group, whether they’ve gone through Hospice or not. The program itself started when Hospice noted the need for grief care in the community, particularly for people suffering from sudden losses. “Interestingly enough, we found that even therapists and counselors were referring to us when they had clients dealing with loss,” she said. 

The leadership norms CEOs are breaking Becker's Hospital Review; by Kristin Kuchno; 7/2/25 From rejecting strict hierarchies to forging unconventional partnerships, hospital and health system CEOs are challenging long-held leadership norms to build stronger, more responsive organizations. ... Here, six healthcare CEOs share the norms they have intentionally moved past — and what their teams have gained in the process.

Reimagining hospice in an AI world: In a digital age, how should technology & humanity coexist?HomeCare; by Michelle Cone; 6/3/25Technology is transforming home-based care, but not at the expense of the human touch. As the industry embraces tools like telehealth, remote monitoring and artificial intelligence (AI)-powered care planning, the goal isn’t to replace caregivers but to support them. These innovations boost efficiency and communication, but the heart of hospice—real connection, empathy and human presence—still drives care during what is often a deeply emotional time for families.

CMS launches new model to target wasteful, inappropriate services in original Medicare CMS Newsroom; 6/27/25 The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is announcing a new Innovation Center model aimed at helping ensure people with Original Medicare receive safe, effective, and necessary care. Through the Wasteful and Inappropriate Service Reduction (WISeR) Model, CMS will partner with companies specializing in enhanced technologies to test ways to provide an improved and expedited prior authorization process relative to Original Medicare’s existing processes, helping patients and providers avoid unnecessary or inappropriate care and safeguarding federal taxpayer dollars. This model builds on other changes being made to prior authorization as announced by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and CMS on [6/23].