IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0191322.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Associations between physician home visits for the dying and place of death: A population-based retrospective cohort study

Author

Listed:
  • Peter Tanuseputro
  • Sarah Beach
  • Mathieu Chalifoux
  • Walter P Wodchis
  • Amy T Hsu
  • Hsien Seow
  • Douglas G Manuel

Abstract

Background: While most individuals wish to die at home, the reality is that most will die in hospital. Aim: To determine whether receiving a physician home visit near the end-of-life is associated with lower odds of death in a hospital. Design: Observational retrospective cohort study, examining location of death and health care in the last year of life. Setting/Participants: Population-level study of Ontarians, a Canadian province with over 13 million residents. All decedents from April 1, 2010 to March 31, 2013 (n = 264,754) Results: More than half of 264,754 decedents died in hospital: 45.7% died in an acute care hospital and 7.7% in complex continuing care. After adjustment for multiple factors–including patient illness, home care services, and days of being at home–receiving at least one physician home visit from a non-palliative care physician was associated with a 47% decreased odds (odds-ratio, 0.53; 95%CI: 0.51–0.55) of dying in a hospital. When a palliative care physician specialist was involved, the overall odds declined by 59% (odds ratio, 0.41; 95%CI: 0.39–0.43). The same model, adjusting for physician home visits, showed that receiving palliative home care was associated with a similar reduction (odds ratio, 0.49; 95%CI: 0.47–0.51). Conclusion: Location of death is strongly associated with end-of-life health care in the home. Less than one-third of the population, however, received end-of-life home care or a physician visit in their last year of life, revealing large room for improvement.

Suggested Citation

  • Peter Tanuseputro & Sarah Beach & Mathieu Chalifoux & Walter P Wodchis & Amy T Hsu & Hsien Seow & Douglas G Manuel, 2018. "Associations between physician home visits for the dying and place of death: A population-based retrospective cohort study," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(2), pages 1-14, February.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0191322
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0191322
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0191322
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0191322&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0191322?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Peter Tanuseputro & Walter P Wodchis & Rob Fowler & Peter Walker & Yu Qing Bai & Sue E Bronskill & Douglas Manuel, 2015. "The Health Care Cost of Dying: A Population-Based Retrospective Cohort Study of the Last Year of Life in Ontario, Canada," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(3), pages 1-11, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Borja García-Lorenzo & Ania Gorostiza & Nerea González & Igor Larrañaga & Maider Mateo-Abad & Ana Ortega-Gil & Janika Bloemeke & Oliver Groene & Itziar Vergara & Javier Mar & Sarah N. Lim Choi Keung &, 2023. "Assessment of the Effectiveness, Socio-Economic Impact and Implementation of a Digital Solution for Patients with Advanced Chronic Diseases: The ADLIFE Study Protocol," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(4), pages 1-14, February.
    2. Alessandro Gasparini & Keith R. Abrams & Jessica K. Barrett & Rupert W. Major & Michael J. Sweeting & Nigel J. Brunskill & Michael J. Crowther, 2020. "Mixed‐effects models for health care longitudinal data with an informative visiting process: A Monte Carlo simulation study," Statistica Neerlandica, Netherlands Society for Statistics and Operations Research, vol. 74(1), pages 5-23, February.
    3. Kevin Milligan, 2024. "Innis Lecture: The time of your life: The mortality and longevity of Canadians," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 57(4), pages 1088-1108, November.
    4. Sanjay K Murthy & Paul D James & Lilia Antonova & Mathieu Chalifoux & Peter Tanuseputro, 2017. "High end of life health care costs and hospitalization burden in inflammatory bowel disease patients: A population-based study," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(5), pages 1-14, May.
    5. Michael Lebenbaum & Joyce Cheng & Claire Oliveira & Paul Kurdyak & Juveria Zaheer & Rebecca Hancock-Howard & Peter C. Coyte, 2020. "Evaluating the Cost Effectiveness of a Suicide Prevention Campaign Implemented in Ontario, Canada," Applied Health Economics and Health Policy, Springer, vol. 18(2), pages 189-201, April.
    6. Donna M. Wilson & Ye Shen & Begoña Errasti-Ibarrondo & Stephen Birch, 2018. "The Location of Death and Dying Across Canada: A Study Illustrating the Socio-Political Context of Death and Dying," Societies, MDPI, vol. 8(4), pages 1-7, November.
    7. Chandoevwit, Worawan & Phatchana, Phasith, 2018. "Inpatient care expenditure of the elderly with chronic diseases who use public health insurance: Disparity in their last year of life," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 207(C), pages 64-70.
    8. Donna M. Wilson & Ryan Brow & Robyn Playfair & Begoña Errasti-Ibarrondo, 2018. "What Is the “Right” Number of Hospital Beds for Palliative Population Health Needs?," Societies, MDPI, vol. 8(4), pages 1-7, November.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0191322. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.