There is limited data on home-based pediatric palliative care (PPC) demographics and utilization outcomes.
Objective:
Describe who receives home-based PPC and compare emergency department visits, hospital admissions, and hospital days admitted in the one year before and after initiation of home-based PPC.
Design:
Exploratory retrospective medical chart review.
Settings/Subjects:
Patients, from birth to their 21st birthday, who received home-based PPC during January 1, 2015 to July 31, 2016 at a single site.
Measurements:
Demographics and hospital utilization were extracted from the medical chart.
Results:
N = 154. Comparing one year before and after initiation of home-based PPC, the median number of hospitalizations decreased from 2 to 1 (p < 0.001), and the median total number of hospital days admitted decreased from 16 to 4 days (p < 0.001).
Conclusions:
Children enrolled in a home-based PPC program experienced a significant decrease in the number of hospital admissions and hospital days admitted.
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