Two Programs Recognized As 2025 AHA Circle of Life Award Honorees

WASHINGTON (July 17, 2025) — Two programs will be honored with the American Hospital Association 2025 Circle of Life Award for their efforts in palliative and end-of-life care. The winning programs are Gilchrist, Baltimore, Md., and Bristol Hospice – Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii. Both winners will receive this prestigious recognition during the AHA’s Leadership Summit in Nashville on July 20-22.

The Circle of Life Award honors hospital and palliative care programs that are ensuring equitable access to care, implementing nontraditional models of care delivery and payment, fully integrating palliative care into a system of care or a community, making palliative care financially sustainable, developing meaningful measures and metrics to track progress, or partnering with payers, other providers, community groups and faith communities.

"This year’s Circle of Life Award honorees have created compassionate and impactful palliative and end-of-life care programs that provide invaluable support to patients and families during their most challenging moments,” said Rick Pollack, AHA president and CEO. “These programs are finding innovative ways to provide patients and their families with greater comfort as their disease progresses.”

The 2025 honorees are:

Gilchrist, Baltimore, Md.

Established in 1994 as a hospice in Baltimore, Gilchrist has grown to offer a wide range of services, including palliative care, geriatric primary care, dementia care, hospice care and bereavement support. Gilchrist provides many home-based services and maintains three hospice care facilities. Staff are organized into teams based in six locations, each of which serves a distinct city or county neighborhood. This program makes it easier for patients and families because each location is centered around specific care units and allows for the ability to quickly and effectively transition patients from one program to another. In 2024, Gilchrist was chosen to participate in the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Guiding an Improved Dementia Experience Model pilot, which seeks to improve care for patients with dementia and their caregivers. In addition, the Maryland Department of Health chose Gilchrist to be part of a coalition that is bringing PACE (Program of All-inclusive Care for the Elderly) to West Baltimore City.

Bristol Hospice – Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii

Bristol Hospice – Hawaii provides hospice and palliative care to its broad range of patients. By increasing access to palliative care, Bristol Hospice has seen fewer hospital admissions. Similarly, Bristol Hospice has worked with private insurers to show how palliative care can improve disease management and reduce emergency department and hospital utilization. The hospice also created multiple strategies to ensure the growing Medicaid population receives the same level of care as those with private insurance. Another integral part of Bristol Hospice is their Bright Moments program, which is designed to help patients with late-stage dementia reduce agitation. The program reduces the need for medication, after-hours crisis calls and avoidable hospital transfers and ED visits.

Sponsors

Major sponsors of the 2025 Circle of Life Award are the American Hospital Association and the Catholic Health Association. The awards are cosponsored by the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, the Center to Advance Palliative Care, the Hospice & Palliative Nurses Association/the Hospice & Palliative Credentialing Center/the Hospice & Palliative Nurses Foundation, and the National Association of Social Workers. 

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About the American Hospital Association (AHA)
The American Hospital Association (AHA) is a not-for-profit association of health care provider organizations and individuals that are committed to the health improvement of their communities. The AHA advocates on behalf of our nearly 5,000 member hospitals, health systems and other health care organizations, our clinician partners – including more than 270,000 affiliated physicians, 2 million nurses and other caregivers – and the 43,000 health care leaders who belong to our professional membership groups. Founded in 1898, the AHA provides insight and education for health care leaders and is a source of information on health care issues and trends. For more information, visit the AHA website at www.aha.org.