Approximately 1.7 million Medicare beneficiaries use hospice care annually, with services primarily delivered through in-person visits from an interdisciplinary team consisting of nurses, social workers, home health aides, and other professionals. Despite the centrality of these visits to hospice care, limited evidence on visit patterns hinders efforts to establish or evaluate benchmark visit standards, quality…
Professional organizations have developed evidence-based guidelines for managing menopause, yet research suggests that some primary care and reproductive health clinicians may lack familiarity with these guidelines or how to apply them to individual patient needs. This report examines clinicians’ knowledge of evidence-based menopause care, accreditation standards for physicians, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants, and the…
The US population is aging rapidly, with the number of adults ages 65 and older projected to increase from 58 million in 2022 to 82 million by 2050. As the population grows older, demand for assistance with activities of daily living (ADLs) and instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs) will continue to rise, particularly among…
Telehealth use in long-term care (LTC) facilities expanded rapidly during the COVID-19 pandemic following Medicare policy changes in March 2020. Utilization has remained above pre-pandemic levels, but research has focused primarily on physicians, leaving gaps in the understanding of nurses’ roles and experiences. Nurses, including nurse practitioners (NPs) and certified nursing assistants (CNAs), are central…
Registered nurses (RNs) are integral to healthcare delivery in the United States, with approximately 4.3 million licensed RNs in 2022, the majority working in hospital settings. However, nearly 10% of RNs are employed in long-term care (LTC) settings such as nursing homes, assisted living communities, and home health agencies. LTC settings are projected to experience…
By 2050, older adults will outnumber adolescents and young people worldwide, creating significant challenges for health and social care systems. With nearly three-quarters of care for US adults aged 65 and older provided informally by family and friends, unmarried and widowed older adults face heightened risks of unmet needs, hospitalization, and mortality. While neighborhood cohesion…
Nursing homes provide essential 24-hour long-term and rehabilitative care for 1.4 million Americans, but have long faced persistent staffing challenges that worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic. Nurse staffing hours declined sharply in 2020 and 2021, especially among certified nurse aides (CNAs), while contract staffing rose dramatically before stabilizing in 2022. Staffing shortfalls were particularly acute…
Personal care aides (PCAs) provide essential assistance to individuals receiving home care, but their supply is increasingly limited. One key factor contributing to this shortage is the low wages these workers typically earn. While state policies have influenced PCA wages to some extent, another potential factor is self-direction (SD)—a model that allows home care recipients…
Each year, over 70,000 people with serious illnesses receive care in long-term acute care hospitals (LTACHs). Many are older, medically underserved, and have multiple health issues. Most aren’t on ventilators but need intensive treatments like wound care, IV therapy, or dialysis, and the average survival rate is just 8 months. Although palliative care could greatly…
Established by Congress in 1968, the Community Health Representative (CHR) Program provides outreach to address the specific healthcare needs of Tribal communities, predating the recognition of non-tribal Community Health Workers (CHWs). Aligned with the Indian Health Services (IHS) mandate to serve American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) populations, CHRs play a vital role in elder…
