SESSION ABSTRACT - Quality of End-of-Life Care in Nursing Homes

Within the next 20 years more than half of all US adults who die in any given year, will die in nursing homes. Research suggests that end-of-life (EOL) care in nursing homes (NH) is inadequate. However, NH EOL care quality is not routinely measured or reported. Consequently, there is relatively little empirical evidence on NH EOL quality.

This session will focus on the quality of care provided to NH decedents. National longitudinal and cross-sectional data will be used to measure EOL quality of care and to assess EOL practice patterns in NHs across the US.

“Trends and Patterns in Place of Death for Nursing Home Residents: CY2003-2007.” Temkin-Greener, H., Zheng, N.T., Mastalski, J., Mukamel, D.B.

“Nursing Home Residents with End-Stage Dementia and Medicare SNF Care: How is Hospice Enrollment Associated with Site of Death?” Miller, SC; Lima, JC, Mitchell, SL, Nathilvar, V.

“Organizational Factors and Variations in Hospice Use among Nursing Home Decedents” Zheng, NT; Mukamel, DB; Caprio, T; Temkin-Greener, H.

“Are nursing home patients with serious mental illness less likely to have advance care plans than other nursing home patients”? Li, Y.; Cai, X.; Cram, P.

"Developing an end-of-life quality measure (QM) for nursing homes based on place of death.” Mukamel, DB; Caprio, T.; Ahn, R.; Zheng, TN; Temkin-Greener, H.

These studies provide empirical evidence on EOL quality of care in NHs and identify characteristics of facilities associated with better EOL quality. The findings provided by these studies shed light on strategies for improving NH EOL care quality.

contact:Helena_Temkin-Greener@urmc.rochester.edu