Quality of Care for Older Patients With Non-Cancer Diagnoses Under the End-of-Life Care Program.
End of life care is increasingly recognized as an essential component of healthcare system, but the access to
EOL care service is far from satisfying the demand, particularly with an aging population in the world.
It was also shown that older in-patients were more likely to suffer from inappropriate
pain control and excessive interventions at the terminal stage of their lives.
Therefore, it is important to deliver high quality EOL care for frail older patients by setting up an Advanced Care Plan, offering adequate pain and symptom control without intention to hasten or postpone death, relieving caregivers’
burden and strengthening rapport with the relatives.
In Hong Kong, people usually died in the hospital instead of at home or in the residential home in view of social culture and legislations. Most of the EOL care was therefore conveyed through the hospital setting. However, previous studies of EOL care have reported dissatisfaction from patients and their family members about symptom control and failure to address their physical and psychosocial needs in the hospital setting.
The aim of the study reported in this paper is to evaluate and compare the quality of EOL care for older patients with non-cancer diagnoses, in the acute and convalescence hospitals, by reviewing their clinical records during the last seven days of life.
With a capacity of 300 medical beds, shatin hospital offers a sub-acute, convalescence and step-down care for
patients transferred from the prince of wales hospital, which provides acute general medical
services in New Territories East region with 0.7 million populations of which 12% are people aged over 65.
Palliat Med Hosp Care Open J. 2015; 2(1): 7-13. doi: 10.17140/PMHCOJ-2-111
