Report
Quality of End-of-Life Cancer Care for Medicare Beneficiaries
Report shows that many challenges remain to improving the care of patients with serious, life-limiting illness.
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End of Life & Palliative Care
Our persistent efforts have brought about a sea change in end-of-life care, but there is still a way to go. Learn more about our work in death and dying.
Landmark Work in the Field
Transforming End-of-Life Care
When we first entered the field, the standard approach to the care of dying patients focused on aggressive, ineffective and often painful treatment, even as the unchangeable reality of death stared patients, loved ones and medical professionals squarely in the face. We joined and helped advance the movement that changed the way physicians deal with dying and death.
Read moreRobert Wood Johnson Foundation Series on Health Policy
Palliative Care: Past, Present, and Future
"Palliative care wins trust because it begins and ends with what patients and families say they want and need," says Diane E. Meier, M.D., one of the field's leaders, in this compelling essay. She examines the emergence of palliative care, and why care of the seriously ill is an important issue within the health and health care arena—and how the current health care system is unable to cope with it.
Read moreTransferring Care from the Hospital to the Nursing Home
Palliative Care in Long-Term Care
Transferring patients from hospital palliative care to nursing home palliative care requires careful planning and coordination between numerous parties, including family members and medical teams. In these “Notes from the Field,” academic and medical professionals discuss the transition from hospitals to nursing homes.
Report on End-of-Life Care
Trends and Variations in End-of-Life Care
Chronically ill Medicare patients spent fewer days in the hospital and received more hospice care, but at the same time there was an increase in the intensity of care for patients who were hospitalized, according to a Dartmouth Atlas Project report on trends and variation in end-of-life care.
Quick Facts From This Report
- About one-fourth of all Medicare spending goes to pay for the care of patients in their last year of life.
- Chronically ill patients were significantly more likely to be treated by 10 or more doctors in the last six months of life in 2007 than they were in 2003.
31%
The percentage of hospitals providing palliative care
Recent Work in the Field
Getting the Best Care for Mom and Dad
An RWJF grantee finds the key to choosing the best hospital for older adults. Alicia Arbaje, MD, MPH, has produced new evidence on how to keep older adults out of the hospital, healthy and in their own homes.
Read the articleAbout Advance Directives
Five Wishes
Learn more about advance directives and how to express care preferences at the end of life. Five Wishes is an initiative of Aging With Dignity, a nonprofit that seeks to safeguard the rights of the sick, aging or dying. The Foundation supported the introduction of Five Wishes in 1997.
Visit Five Wishes