The Future Leaders Awards program is brought to you in partnership with Homecare Homebase. The program is designed to recognize up-and-coming industry members who are shaping the next decade of home health, hospice care, senior housing, skilled nursing, and behavioral health. To see this year’s Future Leaders, visit https://futureleaders.agingmedia.com/.

James Dismond, CEO of Hospice of the Lowcountry, has been named a 2024 Future Leader by Hospice News.

To become a Future Leader, an individual is nominated by their peers. The candidate must be a high-performing employee who is 40-years-old or younger, a passionate worker who knows how to put vision into action, and an advocate for seniors, and the committed professionals who ensure their well-being.

Dismond sat down with Hospice News to talk about his career trajectory and the ways the industry is evolving due to market and regulatory forces and the COVID-19 pandemic.

What drew you to work in the hospice industry?

I was recruited at a chamber event by the previous CEO. My background is in development specifically for nonprofits. My entire professional career has been nonprofits in the business development and fundraising realm, and so she, the previous CEO, really wanted to build their business development department. They essentially didn’t have one.

She persuaded me by letting me have complete autonomy over building that section of the business, and let me build my own team. That’s really what led me inside of all that. During the interview, there was no talk about death and dying, so I just assumed it was separate from my role. But within 24 hours of being in the business, death and dying were all throughout the hallways.

A nurse came in, and she had had five patients die that day. The weight that I felt from that just by extension was super heavy — to the point where I shut my door and called my husband and said I was quitting. I did not sign up for this.

Essentially, I found out that death was my biggest fear without me really knowing it. Since then, with coaching from other leaders in this organization, I have learned that death can be really beautiful, and have turned my fear into my biggest passion.

What would you say is the biggest lesson that you’ve learned since coming to work in the space?

There have been so many lessons. I feel like I learn something new every day. I think the biggest lesson is that, even though we live in the United States of America, there are still portions of our country and of our own communities that are disproportionate. As a nonprofit, it’s our responsibility to serve those needs to the best of our ability.

If you could change one thing with an eye towards the future of hospice?

I am a strong advocate for implementing a payment model that truly supports patients throughout their entire journey. I also believe we need to push for a model that allows people to benefit from palliative care starting at the early stages of their disease, not just at the end of life. This approach would ensure patients receive the comprehensive support they need throughout their entire disease progression.

What do you foresee as being different about the hospice industry looking ahead to 2025?

I think that inpatient and outpatient palliative care is going to play a huge role in where hospice care is headed. The rollout of the new payment models for palliative care in general is going to help formalize palliative services. So for us, we see palliative care as a driver of our hospice business.

Also, the [Hospice Outcomes and Patient Evaluation (HOPE) tool] is going to be a huge game changer for hospice businesses.

How would you describe the future of hospice?

Uncertain — nonprofits in particular, because that’s my realm, are just uncertain of where the hospice industry is headed as far as the capacity to be a nonprofit and function in this space.

Another word that I would associate with nonprofit hospices is “diversification.” We’re having to diversify to stay relevant, to keep up, not only with the for-profit trajectories and competition, but to just stay relevant in the space that we’ve been operating in.

If you could look back to your first day working in hospice and give yourself any advice, what would it be?

The very first thing I would tell myself is that everyone deserves a dignified death. So, on the hard days, I know that death can be beautiful, and it should be beautiful. That’s what I needed to hear. I see that every day now, and that would change my whole focus from the get go.

To learn more about the Future Leaders program, visit https://futureleaders.agingmedia.com/.