CommonSpirit Health at Home’s ‘Aggressive’ Hospice Growth Strategy for 2026 and Beyond
•February 10, 2026
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Why It Matters
The plan positions CommonSpirit to capture a larger share of the growing hospice market while improving patient outcomes through earlier enrollment and data‑enabled care coordination. Success could set a benchmark for integrated, technology‑focused home‑based services across the industry.
Key Takeaways
- •Aggressive de novo hospice expansion across 2026‑2031.
- •Upstream enrollment via EHR eligibility triggers in physician clinics.
- •Emphasis on AI, predictive analytics to improve care efficiency.
- •Joint ventures remain core growth engine, 15 active partnerships.
- •Home infusion pivot toward specialty, chronic therapies.
Pulse Analysis
The hospice sector is poised for rapid expansion as the U.S. population ages and Medicare beneficiaries seek comprehensive end‑of‑life options. CommonSpirit Health at Home, backed by more than 2,200 care sites in 24 states, is leveraging this macro trend with a bold five‑year roadmap that emphasizes organic growth through de novo hospice centers. By focusing on markets where it already operates acute facilities, the nonprofit aims to deepen its footprint while maintaining financial discipline typical of Catholic health systems.
A cornerstone of the strategy is moving upstream in the patient journey. Using electronic health record (EHR) eligibility triggers, clinicians can flag hospice‑eligible patients before a crisis event, allowing the Health at Home team to intervene earlier. Coupled with AI‑driven predictive analytics, this approach promises to reduce avoidable hospital readmissions, improve patient and caregiver experiences, and generate more efficient resource utilization. The emphasis on data‑enabled decision‑making reflects a broader industry shift toward technology‑centric care models.
Joint ventures remain a critical lever, with 15 existing partnerships serving as a template for rapid market entry and operational excellence. Simultaneously, CommonSpirit is redefining its home infusion business to concentrate on specialty and chronic therapies, aligning with the growing demand for complex outpatient treatments. By integrating advanced technology, addressing nursing workforce challenges, and expanding high‑value service lines, CommonSpirit is setting a new standard for integrated, home‑based health care that could reshape competitive dynamics across the hospice and post‑acute landscape.
CommonSpirit Health at Home’s ‘Aggressive’ Hospice Growth Strategy for 2026 and Beyond
Continuing its de novo- and joint venture-based blueprint for growth, home health and hospice provider CommonSpirit Health at Home is also setting plans in motion to engage patients further upstream for earlier hospice enrollment, when appropriate.
CommonSpirit Health at Home is the home-based care arm of the nonprofit health system CommonSpirit Health, which operates more than 2,200 care sites across 24 states. Health at Home provides home health, hospice, palliative care and home infusions.
Hospice News caught up with CommonSpirit Health at Home CEO Trisha Crissman at the Home Care 100 conference in Scottsdale, Arizona to discuss CommonSpirit Health at Home’s strategic plans for 2026, as well as the top trends and market forces shaping the hospice community.
What is your outlook for the hospice industry in 2026? What do you think are the major trends you’re watching?
I’m absolutely optimistic for hospice in general, and I have been my entire career, and I will continue to be. It is the best, most comprehensive Medicare benefit that an individual could receive at a time when they need it most. So that, to me, is the best way to serve humanity, and we continue to do it in really stellar ways.
So I’m optimistic that we have a benefit that’s really robust and utilized the way that it is today. I’m optimistic that we’ll continue to see increased access to care and utilization of the hospice benefit as health care in general seeks to address the issues of an aging population.
There’s a heightened awareness around hospices in general too, so that you know that kind of helps to accelerate acceptance and utilization.
From a CommonSpirit Health at Home standpoint, growing hospice and expanding our locations to serve more of our communities where CommonSpirit Health has acute facilities, and in markets where we have partners — that’s a top strategic priority for us this year and for the next five years — so significant de novo activity and expansion. If I have home health in one market, for example, adding a complementary hospice opportunity for those patients that we serve. So that’s optimistic for me too.
How would you characterize your growth strategy for hospice?
It’s robust. It’s aggressive. Primarily, de novos, there may be an acquisition here or there, but we were really good at de novos and like to stay with that strategy. Plus it’s economical for a not-for-profit, Catholic health care system. It’s the most logical strategic approach to expanding hospice services in the markets that need us to be present there.
What would you say are your priorities for home-based care 2026, both in terms of growth and services?
CommonSpirit Health at Home has skilled home health, hospice, palliative care, home infusion, so ensuring that we have a continuum of care in as many markets as possible, expanding service line opportunities.
A piece that affects our hospice effectiveness and our strategy is fueled by the fact that we’re tied to a large health system, and that the majority of our patients, hospice in particular, come to us as a result of an acute discharge. As you can imagine, that’s been as a result of the last exacerbation, and then, finally, someone’s having a conversation that you’re hospice eligible. We admit them, and they’re dying very, very quickly, unfortunately. So our strategy is that we’re still going to serve those patients, and those patients are going to come to us out of the acute setting.
But we’re changing our strategy to move upstream into physician enterprise, physician specialty clinics, ambulatory centers and clinics and then utilizing eligibility triggers within the EHR to help identify eligibility before the next exacerbation. I believe this will drastically improve an earlier access to care for hospice patients and home health patients, as well as then, of course, better outcomes and a better patient experience and helping physicians and practitioners with the heavy lift of that eligibility, using data and analytics to help us do that.
Then have the team from Health at Home, who are the experts, help explain the benefits and the value proposition, engaging those patients and caregivers earlier. I’m super excited about that, and I think it will completely transform patients’ experience at Health at Home, because they can access the care earlier. Ultimately, if we’re doing that, it would prevent the next exacerbation and create earlier this almost womb-like envelope around patients and caregivers as they navigate health care, which is really, really difficult for any of us to do.
Having an earlier contact to help them navigate what the next right level of care or need might be. If it’s home health, maybe it’s hospice or palliative care, but that’s a huge strategy for us.
Is that a relatively new effort or initiative, or do you have any results to date that you could discuss?
So of course, home health and hospice providers are always marketing to the community and targeting physicians and providers and assisted living and skilled nursing facilities. That’s not new, but this is a different approach to that, a strategy that’s really utilizing the combination of eligibility triggers within the EHR and using that information tied with a navigator that’s in the clinics to help identify eligibility earlier. So that’s new.
The way we’re approaching the clinics is different, and with what data and information is different, and this is just brand spanking new, in alignment with physician enterprises with CommonSpirit Health that we’re very excited about.
What do you see as the major forces shaping the market right now?
AI, AI and AI — I mean technology solutions. We’re all salivating about what it can do to help us be more efficient and effective and improve our engagement of our limited resources with clinicians, etc.
The problem is that we want all of it at one time, like now. But the best thing we could do as providers is to be thoughtful in the application of technology solutions for what makes the biggest impact, what we can do today and incrementally, versus trying to boil the ocean and doing all of it at once.
But I think predictive analytics, data, data, data and AI and how we will use that to our advantage, and finding ways so that it can improve the patient’s experience, maybe in caregivers experience as well. I don’t think we’ve thought that through enough, so I’m excited about what might lie ahead with that.
Do you expect any acquisitions this year?
I don’t foresee any additional acquisitions in 2026, but we constantly are exploring partnership opportunities, either through joint ventures or individuals that contact us that are struggling with payroll or their bottom line or their staffing or their EHR. We get those calls all the time. So we’re constantly expanding our platform through new relationships with health systems and local providers, mostly where we already are.
What’s keeping you up at night these days?
I’ll go back to the thoughtful engagement of the right technology to solve the biggest problems that will have the biggest impact for us, for patients, and to help us be more efficient and effective in doing so.
Implementing technology is no small feat in and of itself, and then there’s change management that goes along with that, and behavior changes, so just being really thoughtful and making the right decisions at the right time. We’re fortunate, especially in environments like this, where you have really strong business partners. They’re all vying for your attention and your business, but they’re also mindful of your needs and want to discern thoughtfully around that too. So that keeps me up, takes a good chunk of my time.
Nursing recruitment and retention, I believe will get easier with more technology, because they’ll be happier and have easier work/life balance. But it’s still an ongoing problem. It’s in all the conversations, and we’re all vying for the same small pool of qualified clinicians and then evolving how we meet their needs as younger generations come forward.
What else can we expect to see from CommonSpirit in 2026?
Health at Home just solidified our strategy plan for the next five years, and as I mentioned, it includes significant growth and expansion in markets where we already are, as well as new markets for home health and hospice and the engagement of physician enterprise. But another really cool component is we’re shifting our home infusion strategy to be more focused on specialty and chronic therapies, which is going to be transformational for home infusion.
So that’s an emerging strategy for us right now, likely 12 to 24 months in the making. I do think too that being a part of one of the largest health systems in the country lends itself to being in the forefront of innovation and how our health system utilizes technology and leverages opportunity. This affords us a lot of opportunity as well.
So for 2026, and beyond, because we’re a part of such a robust health care system across the country, I think the sky’s the limit, so to speak.
What’s your strategy for your JV partnerships?
Certainly a big part of our DNA at CommonSpirit Heath at Home is the successful joint ventures that we currently have. There’s 15 of them, and they’ve been a part of our business model for decades.
The vitality and the success of those joint ventures is a top priority for us. We learn a lot from those joint ventures and best practices that we apply to the rest of our platform. It would be wonderful if all of our CommonSpirit entities could perform at the level that the joint ventures do. They teach us a lot about excellence.
In addition to the continued vitality and performance of the existing joint ventures, we are always open to health systems that contact us that need help or have come to the realization that their home health or hospice is not performing at the level that they need it to. We certainly have demonstrated the ability to be successful with creating joint ventures with hospital systems large and small. So we anticipate that volume will continue.
I would love for us to continue to add joint ventures to our portfolio. It makes us a stronger organization. It certainly helps local health systems be able to successfully provide home health and hospice services in their community at a heightened level of excellence and improve access to care. So it’s vital for them. We’re the experts at it, and it’s a great combination.
What do you look for in a JV partner? What are some of the qualities or characteristics that make an organization attractive as a partner?
Certainly similar mission, vision and values, alignment there makes everything else possible. Transitioning and integrating and creating a joint venture is a big lift, so having common values around seeing the importance of the value proposition for home health and hospice in that community.
Secondly, the health system that leadership is invested in the success of their post-acute services. That’s really vital in order for the joint venture to be successful.
The post CommonSpirit Health at Home’s ‘Aggressive’ Hospice Growth Strategy for 2026 and Beyond appeared first on Hospice News.
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