Go backSearch Session number: 1156

Workshop title: Introduction to Topics on Research of VA End of Life Care

Author(s):
KA Lorenz VAGLHS
JN Breckenridge VA Palo Alto
KE Rosenfeld VAGLHS

Objective(s): The VA is responsible for a growing population of chronic and terminally ill veterans. In response, the VA has taken a national leadership role to transform the organization of clinical services provided to chronic and terminally ill persons by both promoting the development of palliative clinical services and sponsoring new inter-professional training initiatives in palliative care. Research is urgently needed to guide these efforts. We propose to: 1) Describe a conceptual approach to evaluating end of life care. 2) Review VA databases of potential interest to end of life care researchers. 3) Review our preliminary national descriptions of VA decedents and the cost of end of life care. 4) Review VA policy issues and implications for end of life research.

Activities: We will begin by providing an introduction to a conceptual approach to evaluating end of life care. We will discuss possible domains and outcomes of interest to end of life researchers as well as potential sources of information for researchers interested in end of life care. We will demonstrate the use of VA data by reviewing preliminary findings of our attempt to describe VA decedents nationwide. We will demonstrate approaches to economic analyses of VA end of life care using a recent study in which we compare costs of terminal hospice stays with costs for comparable stays in acute care settings at three academically affiliated tertiary care VA medical centers. We will conclude by describing current major VA policy issues related to end of life care and potential research objectives for health services researchers with interest in this topic.

Target audience: Health services researchers with potential interest in research in end of life care.

Audience familiarity: We will assume a general audience familiarity with the evaluation of quality and cost effectiveness but no familiarity with the subject of end of life care.