Characteristics of hospice care users: data from the 1996 National Home and Hospice Care Survey.

Objective: This report presents numbers and percents of hospice care current patients and discharges by characteristics of the agencies from which the care was received, patient and discharge characteristics, services provided, types of personnel that provided the services, admission diagnoses, and procedures.

Methods: The data used for this report are from the National Center for Health Statistics' 1996 National Home and Hospice Care Survey. This is a sample survey through which data are collected on the use of hospices and home health care agencies in the United States.

Results: During 1996, there were an estimated 59,400 patients receiving hospice care services from 1,800 hospices and home health care agencies in the United States. These agencies had 393,200 discharges from hospice care during the year prior to the survey. The agencies tended to be voluntary nonprofit, certified by Medicare and Medicaid, and located in a metropolitan statistical area. About a third were part of a chain or group of agencies and 40 percent were operated by a hospital. Fifty-five percent of the current patients and 50 percent of the discharges were women. Both current patients and discharges tended to be 65 years of age and over, white, married or widowed, lived in a private or semiprivate residence, and had a primary caregiver. The most common diagnoses at admission were malignant neoplasms and heart disease. About a fifth of the patients and discharges had a surgical or diagnostic procedure related to their admission for care. The most common ones were miscellaneous diagnostic and therapeutic procedures.