Families of patients who received hospice care reported they preferred assisted living facility care to nursing home facility care, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.
The study authors examined the results of the Family Evaluation of Hospice Care, a federally mandated quality survey administered after a patient's death that family members use to evaluate the quality of hospice care delivery.
The survey involved 7,510 hospice patients ages 18 and over who had available EMRs. All patients received hospice care from one unnamed large national hospice care provider.
The majority — roughly 84 percent — of family members said hospice referral had occurred at the right time for their loved one. Approximately 63 percent rated service quality as excellent. Family members were less likely to perceive hospice care in nursing homes as excellent.
"Lower perceived quality of hospice care in NHs may be related to general dissatisfaction with receiving care in this setting," the study authors wrote. "Underlying causes of differences of perceived quality in different settings of care should be examined."