Public Opioid Policy May Interfere with Hospice Patients’ Pain Management

Public policy intended to reduce opioid abuse and addiction appear to have the unintended consequence of limiting hospice patients’ access to these often necessary pain management drugs. Misapplication of current U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) guidelines for opioid prescribing is a likely contributor to this problem. Recent research spearheaded by the Oregon […]

Earlier Hospice Referral a Priority for Bereaved Families

A wish among bereaved families of hospice patients is that their loved one had been referred to hospice earlier, new research has found. Researchers from the Dana Farber Cancer Institute surveyed 140 bereaved family members to evaluate their experiences of the clinical care their loved one received and the perceived effect this care had on […]

Palliative Physician Questions Dying at Home

Palliative care physician Richard Leiter, M.D., asks whether dying at home — the preference of most people in the United States — should always be the goal for patients at the end of life in a recent New York Times editorial. Leiter’s principal concern is the potential burden on family caregivers when a patient receives […]