Latest News

The Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association (HPNA) congratulates the following individuals on being selected as 2025 HPNA Award recipients.

The Hospice and Palliative Credentialing Center (HPCC) congratulates the following individuals on being selected as 2025 Certificants of the Year, as well as the institution chosen as  Employer of the Year.

As our advocacy team continues to analyze the 2024 election results and their potential impact on our policy priorities as an organization, we wanted to reach out to share what we currently know about the next Congress and administration and our plans for ensuring that the bipartisan issues on which we work will be prioritized in the coming years.

The Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association (HPNA) co-hosted the Team Conference for Hospice and Palliative Care on Saturday, September 28 in Baltimore, Maryland. The event was hosted by six organizations: HPNA, The Association of Professional Chaplains, The Physician Associates in Hospice and Palliative Medicine, The Social Work Hospice and Palliative Care Network, The Society of Pain and Palliative Care Pharmacists, and Transforming Chaplaincy.

Before adjourning until November, Congress passed a stopgap measure to fund the government at current levels until December 20. When they return after the election for a lame duck session, House and Senate leadership will need to prioritize passing a Fiscal Year 2025 appropriations bill. With legislators are home in their districts over the next few months, it is the perfect time to let them know how important it is to fund priorities such as palliative care research in an appropriations bill but also to make sure any end-of-year package includes language to extend COVID-19 telehealth flexibilities, including the option to conduct the hospice recertification face-to-face visit via telehealth, past the deadline of December 31.  For more information, read the letter that HPNA and partner organizations sent to House and Senate leadership last week.

On September 18, the House Energy and Commerce Committee voted 41-0 to pass H.R. 7623, the Telehealth Modernization Act. This bipartisan legislation would extend through 2026 certain flexibilities authorized during the public health emergency related to COVID-19, including the opportunity to use telehealth to conduct the required face-to-face (F2F) encounter under the Medicare hospice benefit. It also would allow rural health clinics and federal qualified health centers to serve as the distant site, the home of a beneficiary to serve as a distant site for all services, and all types of practitioners to furnish telehealth services, as determined by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Take your education on the go with HPNA’s new mobile-friendly platform, the HPNA Learning Center! All HPNA education materials, including webinars, virtual events, and certification prep courses, are now available in the HPNA Learning Center.

The Subsequent Call for Case Studies and Scholarly Works in Progress is specifically intended for professionals in training (scholars) or early career hospice and palliative care professionals to have an opportunity to present their peer-reviewed work at a nationally accredited conference in addition to having their work published in the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management.

The 2024 Sigma Foundation for Nursing Research Grant awardee is HPNA member Jyotsana Parajuli, PhD for her project “Development and Content Validation of a Palliative Care Readiness Tool for Family Caregivers of Older Adults with Cancer”

The goal of the Judy Lentz Leadership Development Scholarship is to recognize leadership potential, commitment to professional growth, and the ability to contribute to the hospice and palliative care nursing field. This scholarship is available to an HPNA member (CNA, LPN, RN, or APRN).

HPNA recently sent a letter to Capitol Hill thanking Senate appropriators for including funding for palliative care research, nursing workforce, and other priorities in the Senate Fiscal Year 2025 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies appropriations bill.

Pain management nurses are often the front-line caregivers for patients facing death or long-term palliative care for chronic illness. To that end, the American Society for Pain Management Nursing (ASPMN) and Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association (HPNA) are seeking improved access to treatment in regard to the administration of opioids.

The Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association (HPNA) aims to advance palliative care science and provide high-quality, evidence-based care to patients, families, and communities. Specifically, HPNA believes…

Pain management is essential from the time of diagnosis of a serious illness and throughout the disease trajectory. Unfortunately, the prevalence of pain in those with serious illness remains unacceptably high. In most cases, pain experienced by people with advanced disease can be prevented or relieved through optimal care, yet studies reveal that patients continue to experience uncontrolled pain in the final weeks, days, and hours of their lives…

POLARIS Pediatric Pain is a new course that covers the evaluation and management of pain in pediatric patients in hospice and palliative care.