TY - JOUR
T1 - The role and timing of palliative medicine consultation for women with gynecologic malignancies
T2 - Association with end of life interventions and direct hospital costs
AU - Nevadunsky, Nicole S.
AU - Gordon, Sharon
AU - Spoozak, Lori
AU - Van Arsdale, Anne
AU - Hou, Yijuan
AU - Klobocista, Merieme
AU - Eti, Serife
AU - Rapkin, Bruce
AU - Goldberg, Gary L.
N1 - Funding Information:
A portion of this work was presented at the 2013 Annual Meeting of the Society of Gynecologic Oncologists. This work was supported in part by the Albert Einstein Cancer Center through its NCI Cancer Center Support Grant ( P30CA013330 ) and NIH ( K12CA132783-03 ).
PY - 2014/1
Y1 - 2014/1
N2 - Objective Aggressive care interventions at the end of life (ACE) are reported metrics of sub-optimal quality of end of life care that are modifiable by palliative medicine consultation. Our objective was to evaluate the association of inpatient palliative medicine consultation with ACE scores and direct inpatient hospital costs of patients with gynecologic malignancies. Methods A retrospective review of medical records of the past 100 consecutive patients who died from their primary gynecologic malignancies at a single institution was performed. Timely palliative medicine consultation was defined as exposure to inpatient consultation ≥ 30 days before death. Metrics utilized to tabulate ACE scores were ICU admission, hospital admission, emergency room visit, death in an acute care setting, chemotherapy at the end of life, and hospice admission < 3 days. Inpatient direct hospital costs were calculated for the last 30 days of life from accounting records. Data were analyzed using Fisher's Exact, Mann-Whitney U, Kaplan-Meier, and Student's T testing. Results 49% of patients had a palliative medicine consultation and 18% had timely consultation. Median ACE score for patients with timely palliative medicine consultation was 0 (range 0-3) versus 2 (range 0-6) p = 0.025 for patients with untimely/no consultation. Median inpatient direct costs for the last 30 days of life were lower for patients with timely consultation, $0 (range 0-28,019) versus untimely, $7729 (0-52,720), p = 0.01. Conclusions Timely palliative medicine consultation was associated with lower ACE scores and direct hospital costs. Prospective evaluation is needed to validate the impact of palliative medicine consultation on quality of life and healthcare costs.
AB - Objective Aggressive care interventions at the end of life (ACE) are reported metrics of sub-optimal quality of end of life care that are modifiable by palliative medicine consultation. Our objective was to evaluate the association of inpatient palliative medicine consultation with ACE scores and direct inpatient hospital costs of patients with gynecologic malignancies. Methods A retrospective review of medical records of the past 100 consecutive patients who died from their primary gynecologic malignancies at a single institution was performed. Timely palliative medicine consultation was defined as exposure to inpatient consultation ≥ 30 days before death. Metrics utilized to tabulate ACE scores were ICU admission, hospital admission, emergency room visit, death in an acute care setting, chemotherapy at the end of life, and hospice admission < 3 days. Inpatient direct hospital costs were calculated for the last 30 days of life from accounting records. Data were analyzed using Fisher's Exact, Mann-Whitney U, Kaplan-Meier, and Student's T testing. Results 49% of patients had a palliative medicine consultation and 18% had timely consultation. Median ACE score for patients with timely palliative medicine consultation was 0 (range 0-3) versus 2 (range 0-6) p = 0.025 for patients with untimely/no consultation. Median inpatient direct costs for the last 30 days of life were lower for patients with timely consultation, $0 (range 0-28,019) versus untimely, $7729 (0-52,720), p = 0.01. Conclusions Timely palliative medicine consultation was associated with lower ACE scores and direct hospital costs. Prospective evaluation is needed to validate the impact of palliative medicine consultation on quality of life and healthcare costs.
KW - Aggressiveness of care
KW - End of life care
KW - Gynecologic malignancies
KW - Hospital costs
KW - Palliative medicine
KW - Quality-of-life
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U2 - 10.1016/j.ygyno.2013.10.025
DO - 10.1016/j.ygyno.2013.10.025
M3 - Article
C2 - 24183728
AN - SCOPUS:84892815117
SN - 0090-8258
VL - 132
SP - 3
EP - 7
JO - Gynecologic Oncology
JF - Gynecologic Oncology
IS - 1
ER -