Misunderstandings and lagging awareness around grief support often hinders quality of end-of-life care for terminally ill patients and their families, according to hospice providers.
Families are often not aware that bereavement services are included in hospice care, said Marissa Watson-Bane, manager of AccentCare’s National Bereavement Center. The Dallas-headquartered company provides hospice, home health and palliative and personal care services across upwards of 280 locations nationwide.
Breaking down knowledge barriers requires a proactive, diverse approach to grief support, Watson-Bane said. Hospices can identify and address families’ unmet bereavement needs in many ways. Timely access to and awareness of grief care can significantly impact patient and family satisfaction, she indicated.
“We do a lot with legacy projects and introducing that early, if the patient is able to participate, if they’re getting close to death or even in a short length of stay on hospice,” Watson-Bane told Hospice News. “That can be a really powerful thing to help support people in their grief. And then, from the very beginning we’re doing early bereavement risk assessment [for] their risk factors.”
Federal requirements stipulate that hospices offer bereavement support to a patient’s family for 13 months after their death. Many hospices extend grief care to communities across their service regions, regardless of whether the deceased was a patient.
Families have a range of complex emotional, spiritual and logistical needs when a loved one receives a terminal diagnosis. Hospice providers need to understand the unique challenges that each family faces, according to Watson-Bane.
Interdisciplinary team collaboration and person-centered grief support approaches are crucial, she indicated.
“What we’ve really focused on in the past couple of years is what does the person need … and responding to the specific needs that they have,” Watson-Bane said. “Part of our patients’ plan of care involves grief and loss support. We’re identifying who is going to be impacted most by this death? What are the things they’re going to need during this hospice stay? What are symptoms you’re experiencing that could be grief-related?”
Evolving bereavement trends
The last year has brought significant changes in terms of how families are using technology to seek out bereavement support, according to Watson-Bane. The trends could help to improve access and grief awareness, but careful consideration must be given to human oversight and professional guidance, she stated.
“In 2026, things have changed pretty quickly,” Watson-Bane told Hospice News. “We are trying to really lean into how things are evolving and meet people with what they’re more familiar with. Technology allows more people to have access. It allows us to expand services to people that maybe we wouldn’t have been able to before. But that human-to-human connection is also really important … We need to just really keep that in mind.”
Technology has increasingly come into the folds of bereavement support in recent years. More companies are developing artificial intelligence (AI) tools to help families navigate logistics such as funeral planning and memorialization.
Meanwhile, hospices leveraged more virtual avenues of grief support amid social distancing requirements during the COVID-19 pandemic. Some providers have since expanded their digital support through online individual and group grief counseling, or through increased social media and virtual community outreach efforts.
Technology has the potential to improve end-of-life and death experiences, according to Sarah Gwilliam, founder of the AI-powered grief platform Solace.
Launched in 2025, Solace aims to improve access to upstream grief support. The platform has a chat feature connecting users to a grief coach companion that encourages human connection. Memorial and legacy-building features are also included, such as a journaling tool.
Conversations about death often do not occur until the end of life, Gwilliam said. As a result, families are often ill-equipped to discuss or navigate a loss.
“We don’t talk about grief or loss, but it is a universal experience,” Gwilliam told Hospice News. “We’re not taught how to support people navigating it. We’re not even taught the language of grief and death.”
Families are often unaware of their specific bereavement needs. This challenges providers’ ability to address issues such as anticipatory grief or repeated cycles of “micro losses” as a loved one declines, Gwilliam said.
Bereavement communication needs to expand beyond the healthcare continuum and become more normalized, according to Gwilliam. Technology has a role to play in expanding access to more person-centered grief support, she stated.
“Grief support could stand to be a lot more personalized,” Gwilliam said. “Grief is cumulative and deeply contextual. There is a huge opportunity in how we treat grief. There are ways to be ever present, or at least have accessible grief support tools to compliment human care.”
Companies featured in this article:
