End-of-life health care utilization in hospitals with compared to those without palliative care programs

摘要

Evaluations of palliative care frequently use end-of-life health care utilization as a key outcome.1 Hospitals that are early adopters of palliative care programs may differ systematically from U.S. hospitals overall in factors such as hospital size, ownership, and baseline utilization, that may affect programs' effectiveness.The objective of this study was to describe key characteristics of U.S. hospitals with early palliative care programs compared with those without, including differences in end-of-life utilization.