A new analysis of Medicare data from the Dartmouth Atlas Project shows that end-of-life cancer care may reflect provider, rather than patient, preference.
Researchers from the DAP, a healthcare data analysis initiative from Dartmouth University in Hanover, N.H., found that the percentage of patients referred to hospice care in the last three days of life increased between 2003 and 2010 from 8.3 percent to 10.9 percent. This increase comes while the percentage of hospice patients enrolled in the program in the last month of life increased from 54.6 percent to 61.3 percent.
The percentage of patients admitted to an intensive care unit it the last months of life also increased, from 23.7 to 28.8 percent.
The report proposes these percentage changes show aggressive treatment use for longer, when it has already been established that most patients would prefer a care emphasis on quality of life remaining.
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