Hospital and Hospice

Care trends shift as patients and hospitals learn

Wheaton Franciscan Healthcare-St. Joseph started a palliative care program in 2004 with the goal of improving care for patients near the end of their lives.

The result: More patients are receiving hospice care in their homes and similar settings, and fewer patients are spending the final days of their lives in the hospital.

From 2003 through 2007, the hospital more than doubled the number of days that chronically ill Medicare patients received hospice care in the last six months of their lives.

The use of hospice care increased even more - 141% by the same measure - at Aurora Sinai Medical Center.

Most people would rather die at home, surrounded by loved ones, than in a hospital, attached to tubes and monitors. And a new report by the Dartmouth Atlas Project shows that those Milwaukee hospitals are part of an emerging trend to heed patients' preferences for the care they receive in their last days.

The growth in popularity of hospice care in the Milwaukee area, described here in a quote from a Sentinel Journal article, mirrors that in the rest of the U.S., as has been proven in studies like the Dartmouth Atlas Project and it's kin. While originally largely resistant, many hospitals now are embracing and integrating hospice care, partnering with area hospice programs or creating their own programs when others are not present. This bodes well for patients, as hopefully all will have a variety of choices for their end-of-life care, whether it be hospice or traditional medicine.