New Report on Access to Palliative Care

Posted by on Oct 5, 2011 in News | 0 comments

Today the Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC) released its report, America′s Care of Serious Illness: A State-by-State Report Card on Access to Palliative Care in Our Nation′s Hospitals.

As we have seen in other areas of our health care system, we found wide geographic variation in access to palliative care services. Factors predicting the presence of a hospital palliative care team have not changed markedly since the 2008 Report Card.

  • Large hospitals with 300 or more beds are more likely to report a palliative care team (85 percent).
  • Public hospitals (54 percent), for-profit hospitals (26 percent), and sole community provider hospitals (37 percent) are less likely to report a palliative care team.
  • On average, midsize (50–300 beds) and large hospitals (over 300 beds) are more likely to be not-for-profit.

The top performing states (with palliative care programs in 81% to 100% of hospitals) included: District of Columbia (100%); Maryland (90%); Minnesota (89%); Nebraska (93%); Oregon (88%) Rhode Island (88%); Vermont (100%); and Washington (83%)

To read more about the report and download a free copy, click here.

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