2025 Session Descriptions
Thursday Sessions
Score More Program Grants: Leveraging Logic Models to Bridge the Gap Between Clinical Leadership and The Fundraising Team
Annalise Smith, MHSA, CFRE, Chief Philanthropy Officer, Avow Hospice, Inc.
Most non-profit organizations depend on philanthropic funding to support essential programs and services. Wrangling program leaders to identify and articulate goals, measure results and uniformly report impact is often a grant writers greatest struggle. Learn how the use of logic models can transform your grant pursuits from chaotic to calm and enhance your organization’s global culture of philanthropy in the process.
Bridging Hearts and Minds: Honoring Culture and Building Trust During Change
Brianna Delarosa, Vice President Organizational Development & Learning, Empath Health and Renée Stoeckle, Vice President, Marketing, Culture + Communication, Empath Health
Change brings both challenges and opportunities, often testing an organization’s ability to preserve its identity and maintain trust. In this session, leaders from Empath Health will share how they cultivated empathy-driven strategies to navigate the complexities of organizational transformation while honoring diverse cultures and building trust among colleagues and communities. With practical tools, real-world examples, and insights into leader education and communication strategies, this session provides a blueprint for fostering unity and compassion during transitions.
Achieving HOPE Excellence: Innovative Approaches to Symptom Management Excellence
Catherine Dehlin, RN, BSN, CHPN, Senior Hospice Consultant, Confidis Consulting, LLC
This presentation outlines strategies for achieving HOPE excellence in hospice care through top-tier symptom management. It covers innovative approaches such as microenemas, telehealth, and non-pharmacological therapies to enhance patient comfort and care outcomes. Key topics include operationalizing excellence with staff training, personalized care plans, and technology integration. The presentation emphasizes the importance of measuring success, overcoming implementation challenges, and sharing success stories, encouraging hospice leaders to embrace innovative methods for improved patient care and outcomes.
Leading IT Change: A Technology Makeover to Support Our Mission
Elizabeth Kerns, Chief Digital Innovation Officer, Gulfside Healthcare Services and Erick Casillas, Director of IT, Gulfside Healthcare Services
Gulfside Healthcare Services has embarked on a multi-year journey to modernize its IT landscape, aiming to provide the best team experience and deliver exceptional care to our patients, families, and community. This transformation spans every aspect of our computing environment, from foundational elements like network, staff, applications, and processes, to advanced technologies such as AI, VR, and more innovative solutions.
Transforming Workplaces: Adaptive Leadership, Compliance, and Building a Best Place to Work
JJ Jarrell, Senior Consultant, The Krizner Group
This session focuses on the strategies leaders can adopt to transform their workplaces into innovative, people-centric environments while maintaining profitability. Learn practical approaches to adaptive leadership, fostering accountability, integrating legal compliance, and building strong communication techniques. Leaders will leave with actionable tools to not only cultivate a positive workplace culture but also improve organizational resilience and overall profitability.
Seize the Opportunity – How to Use Scalability & Standardization Practices for Growth and Self-fulfillment
Brianna Delarosa, Vice President Organizational Development & Learning, Empath Health and Bernadette Smith, Vice President of Marketing, IntellaTriage
In today’s evolving hospice industry, mergers and process improvements focus on scalability and efficiency through standardization. Beyond practical gains, these efforts create opportunities to invest in team development. This presentation highlights how eliminating inefficiencies provides “white space” for staff growth, balancing operational goals with individual fulfillment. By fostering a culture of value and empowerment, leaders can enhance employee engagement, organizational performance, and patient care outcomes, redefining standardization as a pathway to thriving teams.
Hospice Audits and Appeals
Jason Bring, Partner, Arnall Golden Gregory LLP
This session will prepare providers to have a reimbursement mindset and learn current audit trends. Review how to avoid denials while also successfully navigating appeals.
The Connected Leader and the Four Cs to Company Success
Linda L. Ward, President and CEO, Gulfside Healthcare Services, Inc.
This program provides leadership guidance for succeeding in business and within your teams. Weaving the 4 Cs into the fabric of your company creates a vehicle for higher levels of transparency, alignment and resiliency. Learn how to empower your teams to thrive through connectivity, trust and accountability. This session will review how to keep the wheels in motion surrounding strategy, program delivery, sales, internal policies, management and more.
HOPE Readiness: Learnings and Best Practices
Alyssa Cadwalader, VP Continuous Improvement, Empath Health, Shannon Cooper, VP of Quality and Education, Treasure Coast Hospice, Igal Ladabaum, CEO, Hospi Corporation and Patty Mathews, Director of Quality, Chapters Health System
A panel of speakers will review the key requirements of HOPE and their experience in preparing for the October compliance deadline.
A,B,C’s of Nursing Home Room & Board Pass Thru
Allison Maughn, CFO, Gulfside Healthcare Services and Markie Rodgers, Director of Revenue Cycle Management, Gulfside Healthcare Services
A guide to the provider process of nursing home room and board billing. From notification, census approval, building business office relationships, pass-thru billing and financial accruals. This session will provide ideas to navigate billing and avoid conflicts with the nursing home.
Medicare Hospice Program Integrity: What This Means for Providers
Kimberly Skehan, RN, MSN, Vice President, Accreditation, Community Health Accreditation Partner (CHAP)
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has increased scrutiny of hospice programs related to growing concerns over fraud and integrity of hospice services provided. Hospice leaders must understand this new CMS survey landscape and the importance of key survey readiness to avoid enforcement remedies and ensure regulatory compliance. CHAP will review CMS Hospice Program Integrity priorities, enforcement remedies, top survey findings and strategies for implementation of an effective compliance and survey readiness program.
The Use of AI in Healthcare – Guidelines & Key Considerations
Mike Parkin, Director of IT Security CISO, Chapters Health System
As AI continues to evolve, healthcare organizations have an opportunity to enhance efficiency and streamline operations. This session will explore how AI is being utilized to improve administrative tasks such as dictation, medical charting, and workflow automation, allowing healthcare professionals to focus more on patient care. AI can bring great benefits including reducing documentation time, minimizing errors, and improving staff productivity, while also addressing key challenges such as data privacy, ethical concerns, and regulatory compliance. Given the rapid rise of AI, we will outline essential guidelines for responsible implementation, ensuring AI tools align with organizational values, security requirements, and industry best practices. Attendees will gain valuable insights into how AI can be leveraged effectively in healthcare, helping to drive efficiency while maintaining patient trust and compliance with evolving regulations.
Friday Sessions
From Words to Retention: How Senior Leadership Communication Shapes Employee Loyalty
Eric Scharber, Executive Vice President, SimiTree
This presentation explores the critical role of executive and senior leadership communication in influencing employee retention. It delves into how transparent, consistent, and effective communication from top leaders can significantly impact employee morale, trust, and engagement. Through examining key strategies as well as some storytelling, the presentation highlights how clear and open dialogue fosters a positive work environment, addresses employee concerns, and ultimately enhances loyalty and retention. By understanding these dynamics, organizations can better implement communication practices that support long-term employee satisfaction and reduce turnover.
Taking Your LAPSS: How to Stay on your Best Message
Steven J. Vancore, President, VancoreJones Communications
This presentation is designed to help attendees gain a better understanding of lawmakers’ perspectives and use that knowledge to build stronger relationships while conveying an effective, winning message. The presentation focuses on how to identify lawmakers’ priorities and challenges, emphasizing the value of building empathy and mutual respect. Participants will learn practical strategies for connecting with lawmakers based on shared interests and concerns. The presenter will then shift to the principles of staying on message.
Fostering a Thriving Hospice Workforce: Trends, Challenges, and Solutions.
Irene Hernandez, Senior Business Development Executive, MissionCare Collective
This session will explore workforce trends and challenges in hospice care. Discover how Social Determinants of Health impact care workers and learn actionable strategies to improve engagement and retention. Using national data and collaborative insights, this session highlights innovative solutions for payors, states, and stakeholders to address critical gaps and drive systemic change, ensuring a supported, thriving workforce for those providing compassionate end-of-life care.
Using Available Data to Enhance Your Marketing.
Jeff Alexander, Director of Business Development, Avow, Inc.
We use the claims data to analyze the market and to plan our marketing efforts when it publishes. Since there is a lag in its availability, what data do you have at your fingertips that can help fill that gap? This session will review data such as EMR data typically available to you and using it to spark opportunity.
Hospice Emergency Preparedness – Are You Really Ready for Anything?
Jennifer Kennedy, VP, Quality, Standards, & Compliance, CHAP and Ted Kennedy, Ed.D., Disaster Preparedness and Response, SME
Emergency preparedness is a daily activity, learn to be ready for any type of emergency. CMS provides the regulatory framework for your emergency management plan, and you are required to be compliant. Your plan should encompasses health equity considerations but you need to go beyond regulations to ensure that you can continue to provide services, and protect the safety of your patients, their families, and your staff. This session will examine and share lessons learned and best practices for improving an emergency preparedness/management program.
Operation Advance Care Planning: Documenting, Digitizing and Educating to Get Results
Joanne Eason, President, Five Wishes and Jessica Zan, Senior Director for Clinical Implementations, MyDirectives
Documenting patient medical wishes electronically and have the capability to upload them more easily into a digital platform allows patients and clinicians to access the documents and provides analytics on completion. The issue many hospices have had is to incorporate the documentation easily during community education programs, marketing programs and clinical uptake. In this session, participants will learn the various ACP instruments, how educating team and community increases the usefulness of advance directives, how digitizing these components leads to broader availability and activation of ACP, and how ACP can assist in improved hospice quality measures.
Take Me Away!!!
Lea Pascotto, Manager of Supportive Care, Avow
Self-care is imperative, but what happens when you’re faced with hurricanes, grief and trauma amidst your regular life responsibilities? How do you fit in self-care? Join hurricane survivors by exploring the importance of self-care and how it relates to staff retention rates. Many of us naturally put the needs of others before our own, although we have a professional responsibility to take care of ourselves. Explore ways to manage both in this interactive presentation.
Hospice Heroes – Connecting Philanthropy with Employee Recognition
Carla Armstrong, Director of Philanthropy, Gulfside Healthcare Services and JoAnn Bross, LCSW, ACHP-SW, Director of Social and Volunteer Services, Gulfside Healthcare Services
The Hospice Heroes is a unique employee recognition program at Gulfside Hospice that integrates philanthropy efforts into the fabric of the organization’s culture while honoring patients’ and families’ intent to honor outstanding care provided by our employees. Learn how this philanthropic program encourages hospice families to recognize outstanding clinical staff as Hospice Heroes with their heartfelt donations.