What do we owe the dying? Strategies to strengthen end-of-life care.
More than 2.5 million Americans died last year, and a majority of these persons died within an inpatient hospital setting. The demand for inpatient hospital care at the end of life (EOL) will increase appreciably as the population continues to age; several leading bodies, including the Institute of Medicine, have called for an expansion of evidence-based, patient-centered EOL care. In an attempt to assist healthcare executives to meet the needs of the increasing number of dying patients, we reviewed four hospital-based, best-practice EOL programs. Following this review, we defined an operational planning process that yields three ways to improve EOL care programs. The improvement of EOL care programs should constitute a great benefit to those organizations concerned with improving the quality of patient care, reducing the costs associated with the treatment of dying patients, and responding to the standards of national credentialing bodies.
Department of Health Management and Policy, University of Iowa, Iowa City, USA.
Sara
S
Imhof
Brian
B
Kaskie
D006739:Hospital Administration; D006801:Humans; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D013727:Terminal Care / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000592:standards; D014481:United States