Long-Term Care

Author(s):  
Joan Carpenter ◽  
Mary Ersek

This chapter examines palliative care across residential care settings with a focus on nursing homes. It reviews the environment of nursing homes, describes the residents who live there, and provides details about the interdisciplinary team providers who care for the residents. It also discusses the challenges and opportunities for delivering palliative care services to nursing home residents with life-limiting illness. Quality end-of-life care in nursing homes is important because more than 1.4 million Americans live in nursing homes, and more than half of these residents require extensive assistance with bathing, dressing, toileting, and mobility. Of those nursing home residents over 65 years of age, 80% are 75 years or older. Despite the efforts to keep frail elders in the community, the nursing home population is expected to increase as the numbers of older persons in the United States and other developed countries increase. The chapter concludes with a description of models for delivering palliative care in nursing homes.

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (S1) ◽  
pp. s69-s69
Author(s):  
Leah Estrada ◽  
Andrew Dick ◽  
Patricia Stone ◽  
Jordan Harrison

Background: Infections are common at end-of-life in older nursing-home residents. This often leads to the overuse of antibiotics and burdensome treatments. Improving infection management through palliative care at the end of life has been proposed as a key strategy to reducing inappropriate antibiotic use. Black nursing-home residents tend to reside in poorly performing nursing homes. We examined palliative care services in nursing homes with varying proportions of black residents. Methods: Cross-sectional, nationally representative nursing-home survey data (2017–2018) was combined with the Minimum Data Set 3.0 (nursing-home resident characteristics), the Certification and Survey Provider Enhanced Reporting data (nursing-home facility characteristics), and the Multidimensional Deprivation Index (county-level poverty estimates). The survey included 24 validated items on nursing-home palliative care services, as well as the nursing home’s infection control program and integration of infection management and palliative care (summative score, 0–100). We used nursing-home facility-level multivariate regression to estimate the relationship between proportion of black residents and palliative care scores, before and after controlling for county-level poverty estimates, facility characteristics, and resident characteristics. We categorized proportion of black residents using methods reported in the literature (25%). Results: The mean weighted palliative-care score in our sample of 869 nursing homes (weighted n = 15,020) was 47.7 (SE, 0.70). In unadjusted analyses, nursing homes with higher proportions of black residents provided significantly fewer palliative care services than nursing homes with no black residents, with the greatest differences (P = .027) observed between nursing homes with >25% black residents (mean palliative care score, 43.82; SE, 2.31) versus nursing homes with no black residents (mean palliative care score, 49.47; SE, 1.08). These disparities persisted after adjustment for urbanicity and county-level poverty rates (p < 0.01) but were attenuated after further adjustment for resident and facility level characteristics (p=0.138). Conclusions: Our findings demonstrate that wide variations in nursing-home palliative-care services exist with increased proportions of black residents, even after accounting for community characteristics. Further research is needed to identify and understand the specific community characteristics that play a role in the provision of palliative care services. Palliative care is a method to reduce inappropriate antimicrobial use at the end of life and should be expanded with a focus on nursing homes with higher proportions of black residents.Funding: NoDisclosures: None


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S861-S861
Author(s):  
Deborah S Mack ◽  
Kate L Lapane

Abstract Statins are one of the most commonly prescribed medications in the United States. While statin use has been studied extensively in the general population, national data on statin use in US nursing homes do not exist. This study estimated the point prevalence of statin use on September 1, 2016 and identified predictors of statin use in nursing home residents with life limiting illness. We conducted a cross-sectional analysis using national MDS 3.0 data linked to Medicare claims. We identified 424,312 long-stay residents with life limiting illnesses defined as a palliative care consultation (ICD-10 Z51.5), prognosis &lt;6 months on MDS, the Veterans Health Administration palliative care index (PCI), or a diagnosis of a serious illness (e.g., cancer, stroke, heart failure, etc.). Poisson models accounted for clustering of residents within facilities. Overall, 34% were on statins which varied by age (65-75 years: 44.1%; &gt;75 years: 31.5%). The strongest positive predictor of statin use was hyperlipidemia, while coronary artery disease and stroke were only marginally predictive across age. The strongest negative predictors were a palliative care consultation or a prognosis &lt;6 months, while PCI was not strongly associated with use. A substantial proportion of long stay nursing home residents with life limiting illnesses continue statin therapy despite evidence of net harm. Efforts to deprescribe statins in the nursing home setting may be warranted. These findings can be used to help identify and target missed opportunities to reduce the therapeutic burden and improve end-of-life care for the US nursing home population.


2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anke Strautmann ◽  
Katharina Allers ◽  
Alexander Maximilian Fassmer ◽  
Falk Hoffmann

Abstract Background Nursing homes are becoming more important for end-of-life care. Within the industrialised world, Germany is among the countries with the most end-of-life hospitalizations in nursing home residents. To improve end-of-life care, investigation in the status quo is required. The objective was to gain a better understanding of the perspectives of nursing home staff on the current situation of end-of-life care in Germany. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted as a postal survey among a random sample of 1069 German nursing homes in 2019. The survey was primarily addressed to nursing staff management. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics. Staff was asked to rate different items regarding common practices and potential deficits of end-of-life care on a 5-point-Likert-scale. Estimations of the proportions of in-hospital deaths, residents with advance directives (AD), cases in which documented ADs were ignored, and most important measures for improvement of end-of-life care were requested. Results 486 (45.5%) questionnaires were returned, mostly by nursing staff managers (64.7%) and nursing home directors (29.9%). 64.4% of the respondents rated end-of-life care rather good, the remainder rated it as rather bad. The prevalence of in-hospital death was estimated by the respondents at 31.5% (SD: 19.9). Approximately a third suggested that residents receive hospital treatments too frequently. Respondents estimated that 45.9% (SD: 21.6) of the residents held ADs and that 28.4% (SD: 26.8) of available ADs are not being considered. Increased staffing, better qualification, closer involvement of general practitioners and better availability of palliative care concepts were the most important measures for improvement. Conclusions Together with higher staffing, better availability and integration of palliative care concepts may well improve end-of-life care. Prerequisite for stronger ties between nursing home and palliative care is high-quality education of those involved in end-of-life care.


Blood ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 138 (Supplement 1) ◽  
pp. 4110-4110
Author(s):  
Samer Al Hadidi ◽  
Deepa Dongarwar ◽  
Hamisu Salihu ◽  
Carolina Schinke ◽  
Sharmilan Thanendrarajan ◽  
...  

Abstract INTRODUCTION Health disparities in immunoglobulin light chain (AL) amyloidosis have not been well described. We aimed to assess if health disparities between non-Hispanic (NH)-Whites, NH-Blacks and Hispanics exist and to describe differences between different ethnic/racial groups. METHODS We conducted a retrospective cross-sectional analysis of in-patient AL amyloidosis hospitalizations from 2016 to 2018 using the Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS), a database which provides nationally representative information on hospitalizations in the U.S. The studied period was chosen to capture data from the ICD-10-CM codes to avoid misclassification of AL amyloidosis which was grouped with other cases of ATTR amyloidosis in the ICD-9-CM coding system. All hospitalizations in adults (age ≥18 years) were included. The exposure for the study was the occurrence of AL amyloidosis in the discharge records. Outcomes were [1] in-hospital death [2] chemotherapy use; [3] intensive care unit (ICU) utilization; [4] palliative care consultation. The analysis for this study was performed using R program version 3.5.1; a 5% type I error rate for all hypothesis tests (two-sided) was assumed. RESULTS Admissions related to AL amyloidosis constituted 0.03% of all hospitalizations in the study period (25,470 of 90,869,381). The prevalence of AL amyloidosis related hospitalizations was higher in NH-Blacks when compared with NH-Whites (42.8 vs.28.1 per 100,000 hospitalizations). AL amyloidosis related in-hospital mortality rate was higher in NH-Whites and Hispanics when compared to NH-Blacks (6.6%% and 6.2% vs. 4.9%). In-hospital mortality with AL amyloidosis was higher in older patients, males and those who self-paid for their treatment. Utilization of ICU care was more common in NH-Blacks when compared to NH-Whites (6% vs. 4.8%). Hispanics had the lowest inpatient chemotherapy use (1.7% vs. 2.9%). Multivariable adjusted association between race/ethnicity and various outcomes showed a trend towards lower in-hospital mortality in NH-Blacks when compared to NH-Whites (OR: 0.76, 95% CI: 0.55-1.05, p=0.09) and lower utilization of palliative care services in NH-Blacks when compared with NH-Whites (OR: 0.61, 95% CI: 0.42-0.88, p=0.01). Despite very low numbers of transplant related admissions, such admissions occurred only in NH-Whites. CONCLUSIONS Our findings highlight disparities in AL amyloidosis care for NH-Blacks and Hispanics. NH-Blacks tend to have lower in-hospital mortality with higher utilization of ICU care, nevertheless, they receive the lowest palliative care services. Despite the higher utilization of ICU care, data suggest possible superior outcomes of AL amyloidosis in NH-Blacks when compared to NH-Whites. Disclosures No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tyler Pittman

Super-organization has been associated with worse care quality in nursing homes. Previous research on the chain ownership of American nursing homes excluded government facilities in public-private partnerships, and focused on corporate entities. This longitudinal study proposes a novel method of demarcating the latent ownership networks of for-profit, government and non-profit nursing homes in the United States through use of open data and social network analysis. Facility characteristics and care quality measures were analyzed from an ecological cohort of 9,001 American nursing homes that had a registered organization for owner, and were reimbursed through Medicare or Medicaid. Information was obtained from the Nursing Home Compare open datasets at five semi-annual processing dates from March 2016 to March 2018. Ownership networks of American nursing homes were constructed using the exact legal name of registered organizations. As hospital discharge is a routine admission source of nursing home residents, hospital referral region was actualized to demarcate focal area. Utilizing Bayesian hierarchical models, the association between nursing home super-organization in hospital referral region (inferred by degree-based centrality and Herfindahl-Hirschman Index) to scope of cited care deficiencies (denoted by Total Weighted Health Survey Score) was explored. The percentage of nursing homes having super-organization increased from 56.8 to 56.9% over the 2-year period. During this interval, the mean size of nursing home ownership group in hospital referral region increased from 3.11 to 3.23 facilities. Overall, super-organization in hospital referral region was not associated with care deficiencies in American nursing homes. However, being part of an ownership group with more facilities was beneficial for care quality among nursing homes with super-organization.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helena Temkin-Greener Helena Temkin-Greener ◽  
Dana Mukamel ◽  
Susan Ladwig ◽  
Thomas , Caprio ◽  
Sally Norton ◽  
...  

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document