End-of-life quality metrics among medicare decedents at minority-serving cancer centers: A retrospective study.

Background: We calculated the performance of National Cancer Institute (NCI)/National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) cancer centers' end-of-life (EOL) quality metrics among minority and white decedents to explore center-attributable sources of EOL disparities.

Methods: We conducted a retrospective cohort study of Medicare beneficiaries with poor-prognosis cancers who died between April 1, 2016 and December 31, 2016 and had any inpatient services in the last 6 months of life. We attributed patients' EOL treatment to the center at which they received the preponderance of EOL inpatient services and calculated eight risk-adjusted metrics of EOL quality (hospice admission ≤3 days before death; chemotherapy last 14 days of life; ≥2 emergency department (ED) visits; intensive care unit (ICU) admission; or life-sustaining treatment last 30 days; hospice referral; palliative care; advance care planning last 6 months).

Measuring racial segregation in health system networks using the dissimilarity index.

Racial disparities in the end-of-life treatment of patients are a well observed fact of the U.S. healthcare system.

Medicare Utilization and Spending Among Nurses Compared with the General United States Population.

To better understand health habits in older nurses versus the general population, we sought to determine whether the demographics, health care utilization, and Medicare spending by the Nurses' Health Study (NHS) participants enrolled in Medicare and a matched sample of Medicare beneficiaries meaningfully differed. Analytic cohorts included a random 20% sample of Medicare beneficiaries continuously enrolled in fee for service (FFS) Medicare that were propensity matched to the NHS participants continuously enrolled in FFS Medicare in a single year (2012). Matching was based upon preselected demographic factors and health status, using a nearest-neighbor matching algorithm to obtain a 1:1 match without replacement.