Resources and Readings
Grief in Children: 7 Essential Lessons for Hospice Social Workers
Help children navigate grief. This guide for hospice social workers explores how kids understand death and offers research-backed tools for supportive care.
April 15, 2026 · 6 min read
Caregiving for Divorced Parents: Research on End-of-Life Care Quality
A recent study published in The Journals of Gerontology explores how marital status and social networks impact the quality of end-of-life care for older adults in the United States. Using data from the National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS), researchers analyzed ten dimensions of care. Three
March 30, 2026 · 3 min read
Hospice Ethics: Why Clinical Wisdom is the Ultimate AI Safeguard
The healthcare landscape is rapidly evolving, moving beyond AI as a simple administrative tool toward its potential as an "Artificial Moral Agent." An intriguing article in the Hastings Center Report, "What Does Moral Agency Mean for Nurses in the Era of Artificial Intelligence?" (Ulrich et al., 202
March 22, 2026 · 4 min read
Invisible Crisis: Rural Healthcare in a City-Centered System
You don’t have to be a policy expert to notice something basic and uncomfortable about health care in the United States: Your chances of getting timely, good care change a lot depending on where you live. Roughly one in five people in the U.S. live in rural areas. Yet the system they interact with c
December 8, 2025 · 8 min read
AI At the End of Life: Help, Not a Decider
End-of-life decisions are some of the hardest moments any family, clinician, or hospice team will ever face. Even when a patient has had candid conversations with loved ones, the reality of decline can feel different than anything imagined. When there is no advance directive or clear documentation o
November 25, 2025 · 5 min read
Beyond the Diagnosis: Presence, Empathy, and Clinical Care
The multiple facets of healthcare In most conversations about healthcare, we talk about the clinical side first.Did the doctor order the right tests?Was the surgery successful?What did the scan show? Those questions matter, of course. But if you’ve ever been the patient in the bed – or the family me
November 25, 2025 · 7 min read
The Value of Timely Hospice Enrollment
Despite the clear benefits of hospice care, many patients are referred very late – sometimes in their final days of life – limiting the opportunity to benefit from its full scope. Two of the most commonly cited reasons for this delayed referral are: Together, these barriers contribute to the pattern
November 9, 2025 · 3 min read
What Is Hospice? Finding Meaning in Comfort and Care
The New England Journal of Medicine recently published a Perspective titled “What Is Hospice?” – a piece that captures, in striking detail, what hospice truly means beyond the policies, programs, and checklists that are so often discussed in healthcare. It begins with a familiar question from a pati
November 9, 2025 · 3 min read
Hospice Voices and End-of-Life Choices: A Powerful Call for Compassion
A shift is unfolding across the United States as more states are enacting Medical Aid in Dying (MAID) laws. This legislation allows terminally ill, mentally capable adults with a prognosis of six months or less to request medication to end their lives peacefully. As of 2025, twelve U.S. jurisdiction
November 3, 2025 · 5 min read
Care in Palliative Care: A Challenging Concept with Normative Issues
Abstract Palliative care is an approach for seriously ill patients. Illnesses and knowledge of limited life expectancy often limit self-determination among patients. Along with the concepts of patient autonomy and heteronomy, care is central to the everyday personal and institutional lives of the il
July 23, 2025 · 3 min read
Innovation in Hospice Bereavement Programs
In recent years, hospice bereavement care has undergone significant transformation. Early programs offered traditional service delivery models relying on limited offerings, and structured and uniform service delivery format. Over time, however, researchers and clinicians have found that that a
June 28, 2025 · 6 min read
Caregivers: Understanding Burnout and Promoting Resilience
Caregivers play a critical role in hospice care, where the focus is on providing comfort and support to individuals nearing the end of life. These unsung heroes, often family members or close friends, offer physical, emotional, and spiritual support to their loved ones during one of life's most chal
May 10, 2024 · 4 min read
