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Rural Health
Resources by Topic: Hospice and palliative care

Association of Rurality with Utilization of Palliative Care and Hospice among Medicare Beneficiaries Who Died from Pancreatic Cancer: A Cohort Study
Explores the association between the rurality of patient residence and the use of palliative care and hospice among Medicare decedents with pancreatic cancer between 2016 and 2018. Also examines the use of palliative care at least 90 days after diagnosis and before death and hospice care at least three days before death. Presents data by metropolitan, micropolitan, small town, and rural classifications.
Author(s): Niveditta Ramkumar, Qianfei Wang, Gabriel A. Brooks, et al.
Citation: Journal of Rural Health, 39(3), 557-564
Date: 01/2023
Type: Document
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The State of Health in Tennessee: 2023 Annual Report to the 113th Tennessee General Assembly
Provides a comprehensive overview of health in Tennessee, including health outcomes of individuals and information on the health of the state's healthcare system. Includes statistics on rural hospitals that have closed in recent years, and those at risk of closure as of 2022. Features county-level maps showing Health Professional Shortage Areas.
Date: 01/2023
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Tennessee Department of Health
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Supporting and Sustaining the Current and Future Workforce to Care for People with Serious Illness: Proceedings of a Workshop (2023)
Summarizes discussions from an April 2023 public workshop exploring strategies and approaches to address major workforce challenges, including health professional well-being, workforce shortages, workforce training and retention, and advancing the diversity, equity, and inclusion of the workforce. Includes a section on well-being of the clinical workforce in rural areas.
Author(s): Roundtable on Quality Care for People with Serious Illness
Date: 2023
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Health and Medicine Division (HMD), National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
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America's Health Rankings Senior Report 2023
Provides a national and state-by-state overview of population health for older adults across 52 measures using data from 22 unique data sources. Covers social and economic factors, physical environment, clinical care, behaviors, and health outcomes. Highlights health disparities, including rural-urban disparities, across five categories of health. Includes state-by-state summaries and county-level maps for risk of social isolation by state.
Additional links: County-Level Maps for Risk of Social Isolation
Date: 2023
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: United Health Foundation
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December 2022 MedPAC Meeting Transcript
Transcript from the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission's (MedPAC) December 2022 meeting. Covers payment adequacy and updates for hospital inpatient and outpatient services and supporting Medicare safety-net hospitals, ambulatory surgical center services, outpatient dialysis services, physician and other health professional services, hospice services, skilled nursing facilities, home health services, and inpatient rehabilitation facility services. Includes rural references throughout.
Date: 12/2022
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Medicare Payment Advisory Commission
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Increasing Knowledge of Palliative Care in South Dakota
Describes the creation of the South Dakota Palliative Care Network and discusses its work to increase knowledge of palliative care among rural healthcare professionals, nursing students, and community members in the state.
Author(s): Allee Mead
Citation: Rural Monitor
Date: 11/2022
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Rural Health Information Hub
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Impact of Concurrent Hospice Care on Primary Care Visits among Children in Southern Rural Appalachia
Explores the relationship between concurrent hospice care and primary care visits among children in southern rural Appalachia between 2011 and 2013. Describes demographic and clinical characteristics of children in hospice care in this study. Discusses the findings in relation to the children's residence in medically underserved areas.
Author(s): Mary Lou Clark Fornehed, Radion Svynarenko, Lisa C. Lindley
Citation: Journal of Pediatric Health care, 36(5), 438-442
Date: 09/2022
Type: Document
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Availability of Medicare-Certified Hospice Services in Minoritized Racial/Ethnic Group Areas
Explores the availability of hospice care nationwide across ZIP Code Tabulation Areas (ZCTAs) categorized by rurality and racial and ethnic composition. Provides data on the characteristics of hospice providers that serve rural areas and a high proportion of minoritized ethnic and racial groups, as well as the percent of ZCTAs served by one or no hospice providers by Rural-Urban Commuting Area (RUCA) Code.
Author(s): Janice C. Probst, Nicholas Yell, Gabriel Benavidez, Jan Eberth, Melinda Merrell
Date: 08/2022
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Rural and Minority Health Research Center (formerly the South Carolina Rural Health Research Center)
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Rural-Urban Disparities in Place of Death in Hematologic Malignancies in the United States, 2003 to 2019
Examines place of death (POD) by home, hospice, or nursing/medical facility due to hematologic malignancy mortalities that occurred between 2013 and 2019. Analyzes 1,009,717 deaths recorded in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Wide-ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research (CDC WONDER) database and breaks down POD by large metropolitan, medium/small metropolitan, and rural metropolitan. Discusses disparities in urban and rural community access to end-of-life resources.
Author(s): S. M. Qasim Hussaini, Amanda L. Blackford, Arjun Gupta, et al.
Citation: Blood Advances, 6(16), 4731-4734
Date: 08/2022
Type: Document
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Hospice Care Index Technical Report
Provides an overview of the Hospice Care Index (HCI), a new Hospice Quality Reporting Program (HQRP) quality measure. Presents data and descriptive trends for the overall index score and each of the ten claims-based indicators that make up the HCI using Medicare claims data from fiscal years 2019-2021. Includes comparisons of hospices by the number of claims, decade of certification, ownership, facility type, region, and urban/rural location.
Date: 07/2022
Type: Document
Sponsoring organizations: Abt Associates, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
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