End-of-life care quality outcomes among Medicare beneficiaries with hematologic malignancies

Abstract

Abstract Patients with hematologic malignancies are thought to receive more aggressive end-of-life (EOL) care and have suboptimal hospice use compared with patients with solid tumors, but descriptions of EOL outcomes from comprehensive cohorts have been lacking. We used the population-based Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results–Medicare dataset to describe hospice use and indicators of aggressive EOL care among Medicare beneficiaries who died of hematologic malignancies in 2008-2015. Overall, 56.5% of decedents used hospice services for median 9 days (interquartile range, 3-27), 33.0% died in an acute hospital setting, 36.8% had an intensive care unit (ICU) admission in the last 30 days of life, and 13.3% received chemotherapy within the last 14 days of life. Hospice use was associated with 96% lower probability of inpatient death (adjusted risk ratio [aRR], 0.038; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.035-0.042), 44% lower probability of an ICU stay in the last 30 days of life (aRR, 0.56; 95% CI, 0.54-0.57), and 62% decrease in chemotherapy use in the last 14 days of life (aRR, 0.38; 95% CI, 0.35-0.41). Hospice enrollees spent on average 41% fewer days as inpatient during the last month of life (adjusted means ratio, 0.59; 95% CI, 0.57-0.60) and had 38% lower mean Medicare spending in the last month of life (adjusted means ratio, 0.62; 95% CI, 0.61-0.64). These associations were consistent across histologic subgroups. In conclusion, EOL care quality outcomes and hospice enrollment were suboptimal among older decedents with hematologic cancers, but hospice use was associated with a consistent decrease in aggressive care at EOL.