Preferred and Actual Location of Death: What Factors Enable a Preferred Home Death?

Abstract

This study identifies elements of primary and integrated care that address the gap between preferred and actual place of care.

A Study of the Association Between Multidisciplinary Home Care and Home Death Among Thai Palliative Care Patients

“…This finding concurs with the results from many previous studies that proved the effectiveness of palliative home care in terms of enabling patients to die at home. 12,[19][20][21] Compared to a meta-analysis by Gomes, 22 our study showed an OR between home visits and home death of 10.29 (95%CI 4.6-22.95), which was higher than the study. The large country variation in the effect of home care on home death can partly be explained by the country's health-care resources, and the organization of end-of-life cancer care likely explains an additional part.…”

Variation in out‐of‐hospital death among palliative care inpatients across public hospitals in New South Wales, Australia

“…Palliative care enables people with life limiting illness to plan and make choices about their end‐of‐life care and place of death . However, in‐hospital death typically occurs contrary to the dying person’s wishes and is associated with higher healthcare expenditures . Four in five Australians desire to die out of hospital, whereas it only occurs for half of decedents .…”

Temporal Trends Between 2010 and 2015 in Intensity of Care at End-of-Life for Patients With Chronic Illness: Influence of Age Under vs. Over 65 Years

“…10 Although studies suggest that as many as 60-80% of adults would prefer to die at home, 13-15 only about one-third of patients (all with chronic life-limiting illness) died at home and over one-third died in an acute care hospital. Prior analyses from our healthcare system show that about 40% of these patients died in the hospital with no significant change between 2010 and 2015.…”