Costs of inpatient hospitalisations in the last year of life in older New Zealanders: a cohort study.
BMC Geriatr
; 21(1): 514, 2021 09 27.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-34579669
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
Rapidly ageing populations means that many people now die in advanced age. This paper investigated public hospital and long-term care home costs in the 12 months before death in Maori and non-Maori of advanced age in New Zealand.METHODS:
Data from an existing longitudinal study (LiLACS NZ) was used, in which 937 older New Zealanders were enrolled in 2010. At the time of this study, 213 Maori and 241 non-Maori in the cohort had died. National Health Index numbers were linked to the hospitalisation National Minimum Dataset to ascertain public hospitalisation and care home costs in the last year of life.RESULTS:
The average total publicly funded hospital and long-term care home costs in the 12 months prior to death were $16,211 and $17,351 for Maori and non-Maori respectively. Non-Maori tended to have long lengths of stay in their last year of life, and non-Maori men had the highest proportion with high costs and long lengths of stay in care homes. Costs in the last year of life were 8.1 times higher in comparison to costs for individuals who did not die in the same time period.CONCLUSION:
Despite New Zealand's commitment to providing an equitable level of healthcare, this study illustrated that ethnic and gender disparities are still apparent at the end of life. This raises questions as to whether money at the end of life is being spent appropriately, and how it could potentially be more equitably targeted to meet the diverse needs of older people and their families.Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Hospitalization
/
Inpatients
Type of study:
Etiology_studies
/
Health_economic_evaluation
/
Incidence_studies
/
Observational_studies
/
Risk_factors_studies
Aspects:
Equity_inequality
Limits:
Aged
/
Humans
/
Male
Country/Region as subject:
Oceania
Language:
En
Journal:
BMC Geriatr
Journal subject:
GERIATRIA
Year:
2021
Document type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Nueva Zelanda