Timing of end-of-life care discussion with performance on end-of-life quality indicators in ovarian cancer

- Discussion of end-of-life care occurred late in the disease process and during hospital admissions in ovarian cancer patients.
- Earlier end-of-life discussions are associated with better quality of cancer care.

Objectives(1) To describe the prevalence, timing and setting of documented end-of-life (EOL) discussions in patients with advanced ovarian cancer; and (2) to assess the impact of timing and setting of documented end-of-life discussions on EOL quality care measures.MethodsA retrospective study of women who died of ovarian cancer diagnosed between 1999 and 2008 was conducted. The following are the EOL quality measures assessed: chemotherapy in the last 14 days of life, > 1 hospitalization in the last 30 days, > 1 ER visit in the last 30 days, intensive care unit (ICU) admission in the last 30 days, dying in an acute care setting, admitted to hospice ≤ 3 days.ResultsOne hundred seventy-seven (80%) patients had documented end-of-life discussions. Median interval from EOL discussion until death was 29 days. Seventy-eight patients (44%) had EOL discussions as outpatient and 99 (56%) as inpatient. Sixty-four out of 220 (29%) patients' care did not conform to at least one EOL quality measure. An EOL discussion at least 30 days before death was associated with a lower incidence of: chemotherapy in the last 14 days of life (p = 0.003), > 1 hospitalization in the last 30 days (p < 0.001), ICU admission in the last 30 days (p = 0.005), dying in acute care setting (p = 0.01), admitted to hospice ≤ 3 days (p = 0.02). EOL discussion as outpatient was associated with fewer patients hospitalized > 1 in the last 30 days of life (p < 0.001).ConclusionsEnd-of-life care discussions are occurring too late in the disease process. Conformance with EOL quality measures can be achieved with earlier end-of-life care discussions.