NATIONAL HOSPICE AND PALLIATIVE CARE

Education and advocacy on issues impacting the hospice and palliative care community and patients-continued to lead the hospice community in calling for reforms to protect beneficiaries against fraudulent hospices and communicated with cms and legislative leaders to advance reforms.-continued to advocate for appropriate extensions of the public health emergency including essential telehealth policies.-advanced advocacy on expanding access to community based palliative care. Collaborated with the national coalition for hospice and palliative care to plan a convening with focus on concurrent care. -advocated for additional support for workforce through investments in education, training, and immigration reforms.-submitted more than 30 comment letters to inform key us government agencies about the perspectives of the hospice and palliative care community on important regulations impacting patients across the nation.-advanced discussions and action taken with congress and cms on program integrity to mitigate fraud and abuse.- continued to promote safe and appropriate use of teleheath in meeting patient and family needs through hospice and palliative care services.

Public education-continued to grow and improve content on caringinfo.org, a specialized website designed to provide free resources to educate and empower patients and caregivers to make decisions about serious illness and end-of-life care and services. Translated entire website into spanish. Continue to see a significant increase in average monthly visitors to caringinfo compared to the previous year.-engaged with local and national media to educate the public about hospice and palliative care. Worked with carter center to respectfully and appropriately share president jimmy carter's choice to enter hospice and share it the decision publicly. Range of efforts and communications to advance understanding of hospice and end of life care providing education and advanced 'the conversation' nationally. Nhpco resources and spokespeople were cited in stories in broad scope of outlets.-advanced collaboration with alzheimers association and others to advance project echo series in quality improvement in hospice and palliative care with national and global reach (13 countries).

Support for hospice volunteer and community engagement-honored exemplary hospice volunteers from across the country through our annual volunteers are the heart of hospice awards program.-working in partnership with the u.s. Department of veterans affairs (va), nhpco's we honor veterans program supported statewide and community-based hospice-veteran partnerships (hvps); these hvps engage coalitions of va facilities, community hospices, state hospice organizations, and others to provide leadership, technical assistance, and program development to ensure excellent end-of-life care for the veterans and their families in the hvp's area.-with the va, implemented a community-based nursing facility project to improve quality outcomes. Collaboration of select hospice programs and va nursing facilities would use education and implementation of best practices to advance culture of quality and quality outcomes in nursing facilities. -offered members a suite of ready-to-use tools, resources, and guidance to engage their communities in conversations around national hospice and palliative care month.