Literature Review

BrightSpring Health Services Files To Go Public For The Second TimeHome Health Care News, by Andrew Donlan; 1/3/24BrightSpring Health Services officially filed plans for an initial public offering Tuesday. The home- and community-based services provider first planned to go public in 2021, but ultimately decided against it. Now, those plans are full speed ahead yet again. Based in Louisville, Kentucky, and backed by the investment firm KKR, BrightSpring provides home- and community-based provider services to complex populations. It provides care across all 50 states to 350,000 patients daily, and provides home-based care specifically to 250,000 patients daily across 40 states.Notable Mentions: Jon Rousseau, CEO; Michael McMaude.

Here are the new state healthcare laws taking effect in 2024NOTE: IN PROCESS  ... have to head out early to radiation ... Joy

Happy New Year!Welcome to 2024 and the inaugural issue of Hospice & Palliative Care Today! Hospice & Palliative Care Today is a daily email summarizing numerous topics essential for understanding the current landscape of serious illness and end-of-life care. Building on Mark Cohen's Hospice News Today publication, Dr. Joy Berger (Editor-in-Chief) and Dr. Cordt Kassner (Publisher) continue providing relevant and timely information emailed daily. We're also incorporating a few changes, including:

‘Medicare Advantage plans are crippling rural hospitals,’ CEO saysModern Healthcare; 12/28/23Delayed Medicare Advantage reimbursement is among the top concerns of rural hospital operators, one of several factors expected to be a drag on rural hospital finances in 2024. Rural hospitals, which tend to run on thinner operating margins than metro-area hospitals, have been hurt by reimbursement cuts, staffing constraints, inflation, the aging population and interest rate hikes.

Palliative Care Consultation and Family-Centered Outcomes in Patients With Unplanned Intensive Care Unit AdmissionsJournal of Palliative MedicineJamie T Nomitch, et.al.December 25, 2023Context: Hospitalized patients who experience unplanned intensive care unit (ICU) admissions face significant challenges, and their family members have unique palliative care needs. Objectives: To identify predictors of palliative care consultation among hospitalized patients with unplanned ICU admissions and to examine the association between palliative care consultation and family outcomes.Conclusions: For patients experiencing unplanned ICU admission, palliative care consultation often happened after transfer and was associated with illness severity, comorbid illness, and hospital site. Patient death was associated with family symptoms of psychological distress.

Hospital merger activity to increase in 2024Modern HealthcareDecember 26, 2023Hospital merger and acquisition activity is expected to increase next year as hospitals manage financial pressure, competitors combine and insurers grow. ... The number of announced hospital deals through the third quarter rose by more than 50%, to 53 proposed transactions from 35 last year, according to data from consultancy Kaufman Hall. Deal activity was particularly pronounced among midsized health systems ranging from $1 billion to $5 billion in annual revenue. ... Nearly 40% of the 18 proposed hospital deals announced in the third quarter were driven by financial distress, according to Kaufman Hall. 

Labor activity in long-term care may be poised for ‘enormous’ growth in 2024McKnight’s Long Term Care NewsDecember 21, 2023Heightened union activity frequently made headlines this year, including among healthcare workers who loudly raised concerns about pay and staffing. Multiple factors make it likely that the trend of rising labor activity in long-term care will continue in 2024, experts say. 

The Top 10 Home Health Care News Stories Of 2023Home Health Care NewsDecember 20, 2023In the first year that truly felt “post-COVID,” home-based care providers did not see a shortage of challenges. Instead, in 2023, home health providers saw another year defined by payment struggles, with both the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and Medicare Advantage plans.  ... Reflect back on this year in home-based care by revisiting 10 of HHCN’s most widely read stories.

Caring for Dementia during the holidaysValley Times News (Lanett, AL)December 20, 2023The holidays can be a stressful time for everyone, but they pose a unique challenge for senior citizens, individuals with disabilities, or those living with dementia and their caregivers. Dr. Joe Downs, from the Chattahoochee Hospice, said checking on caregivers of people with dementia is important all year around, but it can be especially important during the holidays. 

A Lukewarm Home Health, Hospice Dealmaking Year Comes To A CloseHome Health Care NewsDecember 19, 2023Following consecutive record years for health care transactions, 2023 was a comparatively lukewarm time for home health and hospice dealmaking activity. That’s according to a recent report from PwC. Specifically, there were 95 home health and hospice deals in the 12 months examined by PwC, which ended on Nov. 15., compared to 114 during the same period last year. The deals were worth $4.7 billion. ... PwC experts believe that M&A will likely be a key growth and profit driver next year.

The Language of Hospice Can Help Us Get Better at Discussing DeathTIMEDecember 18, 2023Just because death is inevitable doesn’t make it easy or natural to talk about. In a new study, researchers wondered if hospice workers—experts in end-of-life care—had lessons to teach the rest of us when it came to speaking with patients and families about death. Daniel Menchik, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Arizona who studies the use of language in different fields of medicine, spent eight months sitting in on team meetings at a hospice care facility that were also open to patients’ families. ... In the study, Menchik noticed that hospice workers used three different types of verbs in meetings with family members: predictive, subjunctive, and imperative. Predictive verbs are used to assert things about the future and include words like “will” and “going to.” Imperative verbs carry a similar firmness, but include a call to action; the most common one Menchik encounters in medical settings is “should.” Subjunctive verbs convey some sort of personal stance when talking about the future. “Think,” “feel,” “want,” and many other expressive phrases fall in this category. When a family starts hospice care, “their capabilities to engage in intense conversations [about death] are usually pretty limited,” Menchik says. But he believes that hospice workers help bridge that gap by minimizing their use of imperative verbs. In meetings he observed, imperative verbs made up just 17% of the verb phrases used by hospice professionals. That’s fairly uncommon in medicine. Editor's Note: Use this article to examine the language used in your team meetings; to strengthen your orientation of employees from non-hospice settings; to engage your admissions nurses in a lively dialogue about its applicability to their experiences with patients and families.

Washington Post Reports Highlight Assisted Living Resident Elopements and Staffing Problems, Industry Pushes BackSenior Housing NewsDecember 17, 2023A new Washington Post investigation has detailed dozens of incidents where senior living residents have wandered away and died as well as “bare-bones” staffing levels at communities across the country. In one article published over the weekend, the Post examined thousands of cases since 2018 where senior living residents wandered away from their communities, resulting in nearly 100 deaths in that time. ... The articles underscore the challenges senior living operators will surely have in the coming years, in terms of both staffing and managing communities and maintaining positive perceptions among the public.