Racial Differences in Location Before Hospice Enrollment and Association with Hospice Length of Stay

African Americans are less likely than Whites to enroll in hospice. In addition, patients are often referred to hospice very close to death, when they may not have time to take advantage of the full range of hospice services. Understanding how race and location before hospice enrollment are related...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of the American Geriatrics Society (JAGS) 2011-04, Vol.59 (4), p.732-737
Main Authors: Johnson, Kimberly S., Kuchibhatla, Maragatha, Tulsky, James A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
African Americans
Aged
Biological and medical sciences
end-of-life care
Epidemiology
Ethics
European Continental Ancestry Group
Female
General aspects
Health care access
hospice
Hospice care
Hospice Care - organization & administration
Hospitalization - statistics & numerical data
Humans
length of stay
Male
Medical sciences
Public health. Hygiene
Public health. Hygiene-occupational medicine
race
Racial differences
Terminally Ill - statistics & numerical data
United States
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:African Americans are less likely than Whites to enroll in hospice. In addition, patients are often referred to hospice very close to death, when they may not have time to take advantage of the full range of hospice services. Understanding how race and location before hospice enrollment are related to hospice length of stay (LOS) may inform the development of interventions to increase timely access to hospice care. Using data from a national hospice provider, African Americans and Whites admitted to routine home hospice care in a private residence between January 1, 2000, and December 31, 2003, were identified. Logistic regression was used to examine the association between race and hospice preadmission location (hospital vs other locations) and preadmission location and hospice LOS (≤7 days vs >7 days) after adjusting for demographic and hospice use variables. Of 43,869 enrollees, 15.3% were African American. One to 2 days before hospice enrollment, African Americans were more likely than Whites to be in the hospital than in all other locations (48.6% vs 32.3%, P
ISSN:0002-8614
1532-5415
DOI:10.1111/j.1532-5415.2011.03326.x