The prevalence of Pediatric Palliative Care (PPC) programs for children significantly increased over the past two decades. In more recent years, however, evidence suggests a plateau in program expansion and service reach, despite the current reality…
The social determinants of comfort describe structural conditions that influence whether, to what degree, and in what forms comfort measures are offered to and accepted by people living with serious illness and their families. The notion of social…
BACKGROUND: Children with advanced cancer have access to comprehensive cancer care and hospice care if they enroll in concurrent hospice care. However, little is known about the patterns of nonhospice healthcare services used by these children.…
Purpose: High-quality communication is a standard of palliative care for adolescents and young adults (AYAs) with cancer. Yet, few studies have characterized the negative communication experiences of AYAs near the end of life (EOL). Method(s): We…
Given that pediatric concurrent hospice care has been available for more than a decade, it is appropriate to seek an understanding of the value of this care delivery approach. Value is the cost associated with achieving beneficial health outcomes. In…
BACKGROUND: The provision of Section 2302 of the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) allowed pediatric patients who are enrolled in Medicaid to receive hospice care concurrently with curative treatment (i.e., concurrent hospice…
BACKGROUND: The quality of palliative and end-of-life (EOL) care for adolescents and young adults (AYAs) with cancer remains largely unknown. OBJECTIVE(S): To describe caregivers of AYA cancer decedents perspectives' on EOL care quality related to…
BACKGROUND: Adolescents and young adults (AYAs; aged 15-39 years) with cancer frequently receive intensive measures at the end of life (EoL), but the perspectives of AYAs and their family members on barriers to optimal EoL care are not well…
Purpose: Concurrent hospice care provides important end-of-life care for youth under 21 years. Those nearing 21 years must decide whether to shift to adult hospice or leave hospice for life-prolonging care. This decision may be challenging for young…
CONTEXT: Hospital-based pediatric palliative care (PPC) may help optimize referrals to community-based hospice and home-based palliative care (HBPC) for children with serious illness, yet little is known about their referral practices. OBJECTIVES: To…
Currently, little is known about how geographic information systems (GIS) has been utilized to study end-of-life care in pediatric populations. The purpose of this review was to collect and examine the existing evidence on how GIS methods have been…
Using a sample of 18,152 pediatric hospice patients, this study assessed the cost-effectiveness of concurrent care over standard hospice care. Analysis of incremental cost-effectiveness ratios with bootstrapping simulations showed that concurrent…
Instrumental variable analysis (IVA) has been widely used in many fields, including health care, to determine the comparative effectiveness of a treatment, intervention, or policy. However, its application in pediatric end-of-life care research has…
Purpose: Considering growing disparities in health outcomes between rural and urban areas of Appalachia, this study compared the incremental Medicaid costs of pediatric concurrent care (implemented by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act)…
In areas where there are absences of pediatric hospice care, adult hospices are often asked to provide hospice care for children. Little is known about these adult hospices. The purpose of our study was to describe the characteristics of adult…
