What is the extent of potentially avoidable admissions amongst hospital inpatients with palliative care needs?

BMC Palliative Care

Research Article

Michael I Bennett¹  Clare Gardiner²  Christine Ingleton³  Merryn Gott⁴  Jane Seymour⁵  Mark Cobb⁶  Bill Noble⁷ 

[1] Leeds Institute of Health Sciences, School of Medicine, University of Leeds, LS2 9LJ, Leeds, UK;School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR), The University of Sheffield, Regent Court, 30 Regent Street, S1 4DA, Sheffield, UK;School of Nursing & Midwifery, The University of Sheffield, Barber House, 387 Glossop Road, S10 2HQ, Sheffield, UK;School of Nursing, Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, The University of Auckland, Level 2, Building 505, 85 Park Road, Grafton, Auckland, New Zealand;School of Nursing, Midwifery and Physiotherapy, University of Nottingham, Queen’s Medical Centre, Derby Road, NG7 2HA, Nottingham, UK;Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, 14 Claremont Crescent, S10 2TA, Sheffield, UK;St Luke’s Hospice, Little Common Lane, S11 9NE, Sheffield, UK;

关键词: Palliative care needs;    End of life;    Avoidable admissions;    Inappropriate admissions;    Survey;    Acute hospital;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1472-684X-12-9

 received in 2012-10-22, accepted in 2013-02-13,  发布年份 2013

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundThere is clear evidence that the full range of services required to support people dying at home are far from being implemented, either in England or elsewhere. No studies to date have attempted to identify the proportion of hospital admissions that could have been avoided amongst patients with palliative care needs, given existing and current local services. This study aimed to examine the extent of potentially avoidable admissions amongst hospital patients with palliative care needs.MethodsA cross sectional survey of palliative care needs was undertaken in two acute hospitals in England. Appropriateness of admission was assessed by two Palliative Medicine Consultants using the following data collected from case notes: reasons for admission; diagnosis and co-morbidities; age and living arrangements; time and route of admission; medical and nursing plan on admission; specialist palliative care involvement; and evidence of cognitive impairment.ResultsA total of 1359 inpatients were present in the two hospitals at the time of the census. Of the 654 consenting patients/consultees, complete case note data were collected for 580 patients; the analysis in this paper relates to these 580 patients. Amongst 208 patients meeting diagnostic and prognostic criteria for palliative care need in two acute settings in England, only 6.7% were identified as ‘potentially avoidable’ hospitalisations. These patients had a median age of 84. Half of the patients lived in residential or nursing homes and it was concluded that most could have received care in this setting in place of hospital.ConclusionOur findings challenge assumptions that, within the existing configuration of palliative and end of life health and social care services, patients with palliative care needs experience a high level of potentially avoidable hospitalisations.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Gott et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2013. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.