Impact of Inpatient Palliative Care on Quality of End-of-Life Care and Downstream Acute and Postacute Care Utilization.

BACKGROUND: Additional evidence is needed regarding the impact of inpatient palliative care (IPC) on the quality of end-of-life care and downstream utilization. AIM: Examine the effects of IPC on quality of end-of-life care and acute and postacute care use in a large integrated system. DESIGN: Retrospective cohort design. SETTING/PARTICIPANTS: Adult decedents from January 1, 2012, to December 31, 2014, who had at least one hospitalization at 11 Kaiser Permanente Southern California medical centers in the 12 months before death and not hospitalized for a trauma-related condition or receiving home-based PC or hospice were included in the cohort. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Inverse probability of treatment weighting of propensity scores was used to compare outcomes between patients exposed to IPC (n = 3742) and controls (n = 12,755) who never received IPC before death. RESULTS: Patients who received IPC were more likely to enroll in home-based PC or hospice (69% vs. 43%) and were less likely to die in a hospital (15% vs. 29%) or intensive care (2% vs. 9%) compared with controls (all, p < 0.001). IPC exposure was associated with higher risk for rehospitalization (HR: 1.18, 95% CI 1.11-1.25) and more frequent emergency department visits (RR: 1.16, 95% CI 1.07-1.26) with no increase in postacute care use compared with controls. Stratified analyses showed that IPC effects on acute care utilization were dependent on code status. CONCLUSION: IPC exposure was associated with higher enrollment in home-based PC/hospice and more deaths at home. The increased acute care utilization by the IPC group may reflect persistent confounding by indication.

A cross-sectional study of provider and patient characteristics associated with outpatient disclosures of dietary supplement use.

OBJECTIVE: Explore patterns in patients' disclosures of supplement use and identify provider and patient characteristics associated with disclosures. METHODS: Cross-sectional study of 61 outpatient primary care, integrative medicine, and complementary medicine providers, and 603 of their patients. Primary outcomes were supplement disclosures (based on audio recorded office visits, post-visit patient surveys and medical record abstractions for the day of the visits). RESULTS: Seventy-nine percent of 603 patients reported on a post-visit survey that they took a total of 2107 dietary supplements. Of those taking supplements, 232 patients (48.6%) discussed at least one supplement with their provider on the day of their office visit. However, patients disclosed only 714 (33.9%) of the 2107 supplements they were taking. Patients more frequently disclosed supplement use when they saw providers who attributed greater importance to asking about supplements. Patient characteristics such as patient activation, number of medical conditions, and use of prescription medications were not associated with disclosure of supplement use. CONCLUSIONS: Provider rating of the importance of asking about supplements is a major factor prompting patients' disclosures of supplement use. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: Provider-targeted interventions to encourage provider awareness about potential supplement-drug interactions are needed to increase disclosures about dietary supplement use.