Increased hospital and emergency department use at the end of life

January 01, 0001

Increased hospital and emergency department use at the end of life

The aim of this retrospective cross-sectional study based on death registrations and morbidity data for 1071 Western Australians who died between 1 August 2005 and 30 June 2006 by researchers from Australia was to describe hospital and emergency department use in the last year of life by people for whom death from cancer or one of another nine conditions was an expected outcome. Decedents had an informal primary carer, did not live in residential aged care and died of a condition amenable to palliative care.

All but 4% of the decedents spent time in hospital with a marked increase in hospitalisations in the last 108 days of life for people who died of cancer and the last 83 days of life for people who died of non-cancer conditions. Those with cancer spent less time in hospital than those with other diagnoses. Seventy per cent of the cohort had at least one emergency presentation. On the last day of life, 61.5% of people were in hospital and 4.0% had been seen in emergency departments.

The researchers concluded: "Western Australian hospitals currently provide extensive and progressively greater care at the end of life. Identifying patterns of emergency and inpatient use for various disease trajectories will assist in the planning of appropriate services for people where death is an expected outcome."

Yes, many can be saved the hospital experience and costs.


For the full abstract, click here.

MJA 194(11):570-573, 6 June 2011 © The Medical Journal of Australia 2011
Hospital and emergency department use in the last year of life: a baseline for future modifications to end-of-life care. Lorna K Rosenwax, Beverley A McNamara, Kevin Murray et al. Correspondence to Lorna Rosenwax: [email protected]

Category: HSR. Health Services Research Keywords: hospital, emergency department, use, end-of-life, care, retrospective cross-sectional study, journal watch.
Synopsis edited by Dr Stephen Wilkinson, Melbourne, Australia. Posted on Global Family Doctor 17 June 2011

Pearls are an independent product of the Cochrane primary care group and are meant for educational use and not to guide clinical care.

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