A Comparison of Palliative Care Delivery between Ethnically Chinese and Non-Chinese Canadians in the Last Year of Life.

BACKGROUND: Ethnically Chinese adults in Canada and the United States face multiple barriers in accessing equitable, culturally respectful care at the end-of-life. Palliative care (PC) is committed to supporting patients and families in achieving goal-concordant, high-quality serious illness care. Yet, current PC delivery may be culturally misaligned. Therefore, understanding ethnically Chinese patients' use of palliative care may uncover modifiable factors to sustained inequities at the end-of-life. OBJECTIVE: To compare the use and delivery of PC in the last year of life between ethnically Chinese and non-Chinese adults. DESIGN: Population-based cohort study. PARTICIPANTS: All Ontario adults who died between January 1st, 2012, and October 31st, 2022, in Ontario, Canada. EXPOSURES: Chinese ethnicity. MAIN MEASURES: Elements of physician-delivered PC, including model of care (generalist; specialist; mixed), timing and location of initiation, and type of palliative care physician at initial consultation. KEY RESULTS: The final study cohort included 527,700 non-Chinese (50.8% female, 77.9 ± 13.0 mean age, 13.0% rural residence) and 13,587 ethnically Chinese (50.8% female, 79.2 ± 13.6 mean age, 0.6% rural residence) adults. Chinese ethnicity was associated with higher likelihoods of using specialist (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 1.53, 95%CI 1.46-1.60) and mixed (aOR 1.32, 95%CI 1.26-1.38) over generalist models of PC, compared to non-Chinese patients. Chinese ethnicity was also associated with a higher likelihood of PC initiation in the last 30 days of life (aOR 1.07, 95%CI 1.03-1.11), in the hospital setting (aOR 1.24, 95%CI 1.18-1.30), and by specialist PC physicians (aOR 1.33, 95%CI 1.28-1.38). CONCLUSIONS: Chinese ethnicity was associated with a higher likelihood of mixed and specialist models of PC delivery in the last year of life compared to adults who were non-Chinese. These observed differences may be due to later initiation of PC in hospital settings, and potential differences in unmeasured needs that suggest opportunities to initiate early, community-based PC to support ethnically Chinese patients with serious illness.

No Time to Waste: An Appraisal of Value at the End of Life.

OBJECTIVES: The use of economic evaluations of end-of-life interventions may be limited by an incomplete appreciation of how patients and society perceive value at end of life. The objective of this study was to evaluate how patients, caregivers, and society value gains in quantity of life and quality of life (QOL) at the end of life. The validity of the assumptions underlying the use of the quality-adjusted life-years (QALY) as a measure of preferences at end of life was also examined. METHODS: MEDLINE, Embase, CINAHL, PsycINFO, and PubMed were searched from inception to February 22, 2021. Original research studies reporting empirical data on healthcare priority setting at end of life were included. There was no restriction on the use of either quantitative or qualitative methods. Two reviewers independently screened, selected, and extracted data from studies. Narrative synthesis was conducted for all included studies. The primary outcomes were the value of gains in quantity of life and the value of gains in QOL at end of life. RESULTS: A total of 51 studies involving 53 981 participants reported that gains in QOL were generally preferred over quantity of life at the end of life across stakeholder groups. Several violations of the underlying assumptions of the QALY to measure preferences at the end of life were observed. CONCLUSIONS: Most patients, caregivers, and members of the general public prioritize gains in QOL over marginal gains in life prolongation at the end of life. These findings suggest that policy evaluations of end-of-life interventions should favor those that improve QOL. QALYs may be an inadequate measure of preferences for end-of-life care thereby limiting their use in formal economic evaluations of end-of-life interventions.

Regional collaborative home-based palliative care and health care outcomes among adults with heart failure.

BACKGROUND: Innovative models of collaborative palliative care are urgently needed to meet gaps in end-of-life care among people with heart failure. We sought to determine whether regionally organized, collaborative, home-based palliative care that involves cardiologists, primary care providers and palliative care specialists, and that uses shared decision-making to promote goal- and need-concordant care for patients with heart failure, was associated with a greater likelihood of patients dying at home than in hospital. METHODS: We conducted a population-based matched cohort study of adults who died with chronic heart failure across 2 large health regions in Ontario, Canada, between 2013 and 2019. The primary outcome was location of death. Secondary outcomes included rates of health care use, including unplanned visits to the emergency department, hospital admissions, hospital lengths of stay, admissions to the intensive care unit, number of visits with primary care physicians or cardiologists, number of home visits by palliative care physicians or nurse practitioners, and number of days spent at home. RESULTS: Patients who received regionally organized, collaborative, home-based palliative care (n = 245) had a 48% lower associated risk of dying in hospital (relative risk 52%, 95% confidence interval 44%-66%) compared with the matched cohort (n = 1172) who received usual care, with 101 (41.2%) and 917 (78.2%) patients, respectively, dying in hospital (number needed to treat = 3). Additional associated benefits of the collaborative approach included higher rates of clinician home visits, longer time to first hospital admission, shorter hospital stays and more days spent at home. INTERPRETATION: Adoption of a model of regionally organized, collaborative, home-based palliative care that uses shared decision-making may improve end-of-life outcomes for people with chronic heart failure.

The risk of death or unplanned readmission after discharge from a COVID-19 hospitalization in Alberta and Ontario.

BACKGROUND: The frequency of readmissions after COVID-19 hospitalizations is uncertain, as is whether current readmission prediction equations are useful for discharge risk stratification of COVID-19 survivors or for comparing among hospitals. We sought to determine the frequency and predictors of death or unplanned readmission after a COVID-19 hospital discharge. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective cohort study of all adults (≥ 18 yr) who were discharged alive from hospital after a nonpsychiatric, nonobstetric, acute care admission for COVID-19 between Jan. 1, 2020, and Sept. 30, 2021, in Alberta and Ontario. RESULTS: Of 843 737 individuals who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction during the study period, 46 412 (5.5%) were adults admitted to hospital within 14 days of their positive test. Of these, 8496 died in hospital and 34 846 were discharged alive (30 336 discharged after an index admission of ≤ 30 d and 4510 discharged after an admission > 30 d). One in 9 discharged patients died or were readmitted within 30 days after discharge (3173 [10.5%] of those with stay ≤ 30 d and 579 [12.8%] of those with stay > 30 d). The LACE score (length of stay, acuity, Charlson Comorbidity Index and number of emergency visits in previous 6 months) for predicting urgent readmission or death within 30 days had a c-statistic of 0.60 in Alberta and 0.61 in Ontario; inclusion of sex, discharge locale, deprivation index and teaching hospital status in the model improved the c-statistic to 0.73. INTERPRETATION: Death or readmission after discharge from a COVID-19 hospitalization is common and had a similar frequency in Alberta and Ontario. Risk stratification and interinstitutional comparisons of outcomes after hospital admission for COVID-19 should include sex, discharge locale and socioeconomic measures, in addition to the LACE variables.

Virtual home-based palliative care during COVID-19: A qualitative exploration of the patient, caregiver, and healthcare provider experience.

BACKGROUND: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many community palliative healthcare providers shifted from providing care in a patient's home to providing almost exclusively virtual palliative care, or a combination of in-person and virtual care. Research on virtual palliative care is thus needed to provide evidence-based recommendations aiming to enhance the delivery of palliative care during and beyond the pandemic. AIM: To explore the experiences and perceptions of community palliative care providers, patients and caregivers who delivered or received virtual palliative care as a component of home-based palliative care during the COVID-19 pandemic. DESIGN: Qualitative study using phone and video-based semi-structured interviews. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis. SETTING/PARTICIPANTS: A total of 37 participants, including community palliative care patients/caregivers (n = 19) and healthcare providers (n = 18) recruited from sites in Ottawa and Toronto, Ontario, Canada. RESULTS: Overall, participants preferred in-person palliative care compared to virtual care, but suggested virtual care could be a useful supplement to in-person care. The findings are presented in three main themes: (1) Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on community palliative care services; (2) Factors influencing transition from exclusively virtual model of care back to a blended model of care; and (3) Recommended uses and implementation of virtual palliative care. CONCLUSIONS: Incorporating virtual palliative care into healthcare provider practice models (blended care models) may be the ideal model of care and standard practice moving forward beyond the COVID-19 pandemic, which has important implications toward organization and delivery of community palliative care services and funding of healthcare providers.

Association Between Attending Physicians' Rates of Referral to Palliative Care and Location of Death in Hospitalized Adults With Serious Illness: A Population-based Cohort Study.

BACKGROUND: Patients who receive palliative care are less likely to die in hospital. OBJECTIVE: To measure the association between physician rates of referral to palliative care and location of death in hospitalized adults with serious illness. RESEARCH DESIGN: Population-based decedent cohort study using linked health administrative data in Ontario, Canada. SUBJECTS: A total of 7866 physicians paired with 130,862 hospitalized adults in their last year of life who died of serious illness between 2010 and 2016. EXPOSURE: Physician annual rate of referral to palliative care (high, average, low). MEASURES: Odds of death in hospital versus home, adjusted for patient characteristics. RESULTS: There was nearly 4-fold variation in the proportion of patients receiving palliative care during follow-up based on attending physician referral rates: high 42.4% (n=24,433), average 24.7% (n=10,772), low 10.7% (n=6721). Referral to palliative care was also associated with being referred by palliative care specialists and in urban teaching hospitals. The proportion of patients who died in hospital according to physician referral rate were 47.7% (high), 50.1% (average), and 52.8% (low). Hospitalized patients cared for by a physician who referred to palliative care at a high rate had lower risk of dying in hospital than at home compared with patients who were referred by a physician with an average rate of referral [adjusted odds ratio 0.91; 95% confidence interval, 0.86-0.95; number needed to treat=57 (interquartile range 41-92)] and by a physician with a low rate of referral [adjusted odds ratio 0.81; 95% confidence interval, 0.77-0.84; number needed to treat =28 patients (interquartile range 23-44)]. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: An attending physicians' rates of referral to palliative care is associated with a lower risk of dying in hospital. Therefore, patients who are cared for by physicians with higher rates of referral to palliative care are less likely to die in hospital and more likely to die at home. Standardizing referral to palliative care may help reduce physician-level variation as a barrier to access.

Association between high cost user status and end-of-life care in hospitalized patients: A national cohort study of patients who die in hospital.

BACKGROUND: Studies comparing end-of-life care between patients who are high cost users of the healthcare system compared to those who are not are lacking. AIM: The objective of this study was to describe and measure the association between high cost user status and several health services outcomes for all adults in Canada who died in acute care, compared to non-high cost users and those without prior healthcare use. SETTINGS AND PARTICIPANTS: We used administrative data for all adults who died in hospital in Canada between 2011 and 2015 to measure the odds of admission to the intensive care unit (ICU), receipt of invasive interventions, major surgery, and receipt of palliative care during the hospitalization in which the patient died. High cost users were defined as those in the top 10% of acute healthcare costs in the year prior to a person's hospitalization in which they died. RESULTS: Among 252,648 people who died in hospital, 25,264 were high cost users (10%), 112,506 were non-high cost users (44.5%) and 114,878 had no prior acute care use (45.5%). After adjustment for age and sex, high cost user status was associated with a 14% increased odds of receiving an invasive intervention, a 15% increased odds of having major surgery, and an 8% lower odds of receiving palliative care compared to non-high cost users, but opposite when compared to patients without prior healthcare use. CONCLUSIONS: Many patients receive aggressive elements of end-of-life care during the hospitalization in which they die and a substantial number do not receive palliative care. Understanding how this care differs between those who were previously high- and non-high cost users may provide an opportunity to improve end of life care for whom better care planning and provision ought to be an equal priority.

Association of Receipt of Palliative Care Interventions With Health Care Use, Quality of Life, and Symptom Burden Among Adults With Chronic Noncancer Illness: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.

Importance: The evidence for palliative care exists predominantly for patients with cancer. The effect of palliative care on important end-of-life outcomes in patients with noncancer illness is unclear. Objective: To measure the association between palliative care and acute health care use, quality of life (QOL), and symptom burden in adults with chronic noncancer illnesses. Data Sources: MEDLINE, Embase, CINAHL, PsycINFO, and PubMed from inception to April 18, 2020. Study Selection: Randomized clinical trials of palliative care interventions in adults with chronic noncancer illness. Studies involving at least 50% of patients with cancer were excluded. Data Extraction and Synthesis: Two reviewers independently screened, selected, and extracted data from studies. Narrative synthesis was conducted for all trials. All outcomes were analyzed using random-effects meta-analysis. Main Outcomes and Measures: Acute health care use (hospitalizations and emergency department use), disease-generic and disease-specific quality of life (QOL), and symptoms, with estimates of QOL translated to units of the Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy-Palliative Care scale (range, 0 [worst] to 184 [best]; minimal clinically important difference, 9 points) and symptoms translated to units of the Edmonton Symptom Assessment Scale global distress score (range, 0 [best] to 90 [worst]; minimal clinically important difference, 5.7 points). Results: Twenty-eight trials provided data on 13 664 patients (mean age, 74 years; 46% were women). Ten trials were of heart failure (n = 4068 patients), 11 of mixed disease (n = 8119), 4 of dementia (n = 1036), and 3 of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (n = 441). Palliative care, compared with usual care, was statistically significantly associated with less emergency department use (9 trials [n = 2712]; 20% vs 24%; odds ratio, 0.82 [95% CI, 0.68-1.00]; I2 = 3%), less hospitalization (14 trials [n = 3706]; 38% vs 42%; odds ratio, 0.80 [95% CI, 0.65-0.99]; I2 = 41%), and modestly lower symptom burden (11 trials [n = 2598]; pooled standardized mean difference (SMD), -0.12; [95% CI, -0.20 to -0.03]; I2 = 0%; Edmonton Symptom Assessment Scale score mean difference, -1.6 [95% CI, -2.6 to -0.4]). Palliative care was not significantly associated with disease-generic QOL (6 trials [n = 1334]; SMD, 0.18 [95% CI, -0.24 to 0.61]; I2 = 87%; Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy-Palliative Care score mean difference, 4.7 [95% CI, -6.3 to 15.9]) or disease-specific measures of QOL (11 trials [n = 2204]; SMD, 0.07 [95% CI, -0.09 to 0.23]; I2 = 68%). Conclusions and Relevance: In this systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials of patients with primarily noncancer illness, palliative care, compared with usual care, was statistically significantly associated with less acute health care use and modestly lower symptom burden, but there was no significant difference in quality of life. Analyses for some outcomes were based predominantly on studies of patients with heart failure, which may limit generalizability to other chronic illnesses.

Association between Physician Intensity of Antibiotic Prescribing and the Prescription of Benzodiazepines, Opioids and Proton-Pump Inhibitors to Nursing Home Residents: a Population-Based Observational Study.

BACKGROUND: Prescribing patterns for episodic medications, such as antibiotics, might make useful surrogate measures of a physician's overall prescribing practice because use is common, and variation exists across prescribers. However, the extent to which a physician's current antibiotic prescribing practices are associated with the rate of prescription of other potentially harmful medications remains unknown. OBJECTIVE: To examine the association between a physician's rate of antibiotic prescribing and their prescribing rate of benzodiazepines, opioids and proton-pump inhibitors in older adults. DESIGN: Population-based cohort study in nursing homes in Ontario, Canada, which provides comprehensive clinical, behavioural and functional information on all patients. PARTICIPANTS: 1926 physicians who provided care among 128,979 physician-patient pairs in 2015. MAIN MEASURES: Likelihood of prescribing a benzodiazepine, opioid or proton-pump inhibitor between low-, average- and high-intensity antibiotic prescribers, adjusted for patient characteristics. KEY RESULTS: Compared with average-intensity antibiotic prescribers, high-intensity prescribers had an increased likelihood of prescribing a benzodiazepine (odds ratio 1.21 [95% CI, 1.11-1.32]), an opioid (odds ratio 1.28 [95% CI, 1.17-1.39]) or a proton-pump inhibitor (odds ratio 1.38 [95% CI, 1.27-1.51]]. High-intensity antibiotic prescribers were more likely to be high prescribers of all three medications (odds ratio 6.24 [95% CI, 2.90-13.39]) and also more likely to initiate all three medications, compared with average-intensity prescribers. CONCLUSIONS: The intensity of a physician's episodic antibiotic prescribing was significantly associated with the likelihood of new and continued prescribing of opioids, benzodiazepines and proton-pump inhibitors in nursing homes. Patterns of episodic prescribing may be a useful mechanism to target physician-level interventions to optimize general prescribing behaviors, instead of prescribing behaviors for single medications.

The risk of death within 5 years of first hospital admission in older adults.

BACKGROUND: The risk of death in people after their first admission to hospital or first presentation to the emergency department for any reason is not known. The objective of this study was to estimate the risk of death among older adults who had had no admissions to hospital or emergency department visits in the preceding 5 years. METHODS: We used administrative data from Ontario, Canada, from 2007 to 2017 to measure the 5-year risk of death in community-dwelling adults aged 66 years and older after their first planned or unplanned hospital admission or emergency department visit, and among those who were neither admitted to hospital nor presented to the emergency department. We describe how this risk varied by age. RESULTS: Among 922 074 community-dwelling older adults, 12.7% died (116 940 deaths) over a follow-up of 3 112 528 person-years (standardized mortality rate 53.8 per 1000 person-years). After the first unplanned hospital admission, 39.7% died (59 234 deaths, standardized mortality rate 127.6 per 1000 person-years). After the first planned hospital admission, 13.0% died (10 775 deaths, standardized mortality rate 44.6 per 1000 person-years). After the first visit to the emergency department, 10.9% died (35 663 deaths, standardized mortality rate 36.2 per 1000 person-years). Among those with neither an emergency department visit nor hospital admission during follow-up, 3.1% died (11 268 deaths, standardized mortality rate 29.6 per 1000 person-years). Slightly more than half of all deaths were in those with first unplanned hospital admission (50.7%). INTERPRETATION: Death within 5 years of first unplanned hospital admission for older adults is frequent and common. Knowledge of this risk may influence counselling and patient preferences and may be useful in research and analyses for health system planning.

The anticoagulation choices of internal medicine residents for stroke prevention in non-valvular atrial fibrillation.

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY: To explore the oral anticoagulation (OAC) prescribing choices of Canadian internal medicine residents, at different training levels, in comparison with the Canadian Cardiovascular Society (CCS) guidelines for non-valvular atrial fibrillation (NVAF). STUDY DESIGN: Cross-sectional, web-based survey, involving clinical scenarios designed to favour the use of non-vitamin K antagonists (NOACs) as per the 2014 CCS NVAF guidelines. Additional questions were also designed to determine resident attitudes towards OAC prescribing. RESULTS: A total of 518 internal medicine responses were analysed, with 196 postgraduate year (PGY)-1s, 169 PGY-2s and 153 PGY-3s. The majority of residents (81%) reported feeling comfortable choosing OAC, with 95% having started OAC in the past 3 months. In the initial clinical scenario involving an uncomplicated patient with a CHADS2 score of 3, warfarin was favoured over any of the NOACs by PGY-1s (81.6% vs 73.9%), but NOACs were favoured by PGY-3s (88.3% vs 83.7%). This was the only scenario where OAC choices varied by PGY year, as each of the subsequent clinical scenarios residents generally favoured warfarin over NOACs irrespective of level of training. The majority of residents stated that they would no longer prescribe warfarin once NOAC reversal agents are available, and residents felt risk of adverse events was the most important factor when choosing OAC. CONCLUSIONS: Canadian internal medicine residents favoured warfarin over NOACs for patients with NVAF, which is in discordance with the evidence-based CCS guidelines. This finding persisted throughout the 3 years of core internal medicine training.