Hospice of the Western Reserve announced it has launched an innovative end-of-life doula program to enhance support for patients and their families in the final phase of life. The new program will be provided exclusively by specially trained volunteers at the Cleveland-based nonprofit agency, according to a news release...

An assessment of community needs is essential for hospices working to establish or grow their palliative care programs. Providers need to understand the population that they serve in terms of demographics, culture and the availability of palliative care and other health care services in that region...

Hospices have shifted staff training as well as patient admission and documentation processes amid a barrage of changes since the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services issued the election statement addendum rule Oct. 2020. While the new rule could stand to improve patient awareness and understanding of hospice, providers who fail to comply face financial risks...

Carolina Caring, a local health care organization providing serious illness care, has introduced a new virtual intake platform (VIP) to help patients access its services sooner while simplifying the admissions process...

A rising number of physicians would switch their contracts to a different hospice provider if the organization had an electronic health record (EHR) that is interoperable with their own. Likewise, hospices and other post-acute providers are increasingly recognizing the importance of achieving interoperability with their referral partners. Nearly 75% of physicians indicated in a MatrixCare survey that they would be apt to change post-acute partners that they believe could more effectively process electronic referrals. This is up from 64% in a similar survey last year...

The U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is delaying implementation of the Primary Care First Serious Illness Population payment model and has not announced a new start date. The agency indicated the delay in a note on its Primary Care First website, promising more information in the near future...

Hospices are seeking to build new levels of efficiency into their workflows as they contend with COVID-19 headwinds and prepare for participation in value-based payment models. A rising number of providers are turning to emerging technologies to support those efforts including artificial intelligence, telehealth and robotic process automation...

Many older adults with dementia are prescribed dangerous combinations of drugs that raise their risk of overdose, falls and further mental deterioration, a new study finds. About 1 in 7 people with dementia living outside of nursing homes are taking three or more drugs that act on their brain and nervous system, researchers reported. The most troubling combinations involved opioids, noted lead researcher Dr. Donovan Maust, an associate professor of psychiatry at Michigan Medicine, the University of Michigan’s academic medical center...

A number of health care industry organizations — including the National Hospice & Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO) and the National Association for Home Care & Hospice (NAHC) — have written to congressional leaders requesting an extension of the temporary suspension of reimbursement sequestration...