Study reveals profile of patients most likely to delay hospice enrollment until final days of life
“Waiting until the final days of life to begin hospice can shortchange patients and their families — skipping over many benefits of hospice care and limiting the opportunity to improve patients’ quality of life during this stressful time,” said study co-author David Casarett, MD, a professor of Medicine and director of Hospice and Palliative care at Penn Medicine. “Our findings point to some reasons why patients may seek hospice care so late in the course of their illness, which we hope will enable us to improve transitions to hospice at a more beneficial point in their care.” The team examined de-identified data from electronic medical records of 64,264 patients in 12 hospices in the Coalition of Hospices Organized to Investigate Comparative Effectiveness network from January 2008 to May 2013. …