The reach of hospice care in the USA
- According to the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO), an estimated 1.45 million patients received services from hospice in 2008.
- For 2008, approximately 38.5% of all deaths in the United States were under the care of a hospice program.
- The average number of days that hospice patients received care increased from 59.8 in 2006 to 69.5 in 2008.
- Most hospice patients received care in the place they call ‘home”. In addition to private residences, this included nursing homes and residential facilities. In 2008, 68.8% of patients received care at home, 21% in an inpatient facility, and 10.1% died in a hospital setting that was not operated by a hospice team.
- When the hospice community was established in the 1970s, cancer patients made up the largest percentage of hospice admissions. Today, cancer diagnoses account for less than half of all hospice admissions (38.3%). In 2008, the top four chronic illnesses served by hospice included debility, heart disease, dementia, and lung disease.
It was also reported by NHPCO that hospice care may prolong the lives of some terminally ill patients. In a recent study by Connor et al in the, the mean survival was 29 days longer for hospice patients than for non-hospice patients. In other words, patients who chose hospice care lived an average of one month longer than similar patients who did not choose hospice care. Researchers selected 4,493 terminally ill patients with either congestive heart failure or cancer of the breast, colon, lung, pancreas, or prostate. They then analyzed the difference in survival periods between those who received hospice care and for those who did not.
Longer lengths of survival were found in four of the six disease categories studied. The largest difference in survival between the hospice and non-hospice cohorts was observed in congestive heart failure patients where the mean survival period jumped from 321 days to 402 days. The mean survival period also was significantly longer for the hospice patients with lung cancer (39 days) and pancreatic cancer (21 days), while marginally significant for colon cancer (33 days).
Delaware Hospice is accredited by The Joint Commission.