If standards are developed for high-quality bereavement and grief care, they must apply to settings outside of traditional hospice care, such as affordable senior housing, where there is a “critical lack” of mental health services.
That’s according to LeadingAge, which submitted comments last week to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality on a draft report from a research project that will inform an independent panel that will develop standards for high-quality bereavement and grief care.
Katy Barnett, LeadingAge director of home care and hospice operations and policy, highlighted the need for cross-continuum grief and bereavement assessments, interventions and resources, including in settings outside of traditional hospice care, such as affordable senior housing.
“It is essential that the consensus-based standards developed by this project are applicable to every setting where grief exists,” shs said.
In her comments, Barentt noted concerns from the association’s affordable senior housing provider members about their lack of preparedness in supporting residents in federally subsidized housing communities who are dealing with unresolved grief, particularly from losses experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Another significant issue among affordable senior housing residents is “disenfranchised grief,” which relates to the loss of identity and independence due to aging, as well as grief tied to health diagnoses, she said, adding that a “critical lack” of mental health services, including bereavement support, exists for affordable senior housing residents.
“Many older adults also experience compounding grief along with isolation and loneliness, which is an increasingly critical health issue for older adults that was exacerbated by the public health emergency and was painfully present in affordable senior housing communities, most of which lack digital connectivity capabilities,” Barnett wrote. “Service coordinators in affordable housing — similar to a social worker who assists older adults as they age in community — feel unprepared to help residents through these stages of life and are ill-equipped to recognize when grief evolves into significant mental and physical health issues.”
Service coordinators are not medical professionals, she said.
More research is needed to identify effective approaches to screening for grief in non-medical settings, such as affordable senior housing communities, Barnett said.
“Grief has no boundaries, and making sure that professionals in other spaces of society have access to information to conduct potential grief and bereavement screenings is key to supporting the entire population,” Barnett wrote.
LeadingAge worked with Congress to craft the language that accompanied the funding of the project through the 2023 federal appropriations process. The agreement included $1 million to fund an evidence review and technical expert panel to assess the feasibility of developing consensus-based quality standards for bereavement and grief care.
AHRQ will work with stakeholders — including community-based providers, the National Quality Forum and the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute — to establish the standards.
