PaCES-Non-cancer

Most Albertans die of chronic diseases such as heart disease, stroke, cancer, chronic respiratory diseases and diabetes. The long term goal of this MSI Foundation-funded project is to ensure that these patients are receiving the best possible healthcare at the end of life. Research and experience show that palliative care is a key ingredient to doing this. Palliative care addresses patients’ unmet needs around illness comprehension and coping, advance care planning and decision making, symptoms and daily functioning, and coordination of care.

In Alberta, very few chronic disease patients appear to access palliative care services. It is not clear why this is the case. This study focused on producing a detailed description of palliative care use by patients who died of a chronic disease in the Calgary area (Calgary Zone) from 2003-2016. Using administrative healthcare data, we describe which chronic disease patients are mostly likely to get palliative care (and the timing of palliative care), and the impact palliative care had on a patient's risk of experiencing aggressive end-of-life care. This analysis is critical in identifying patient populations with the highest burden and greatest unmet needs (based on healthcare resource use in the last year of life).