Home health care and discharged hospice care patients: United States, 2000 and 2007.

Objectives: This report presents national estimates on home health care patients and discharged hospice care patients. Information on characteristics, length of service, medical diagnoses, functional limitations, service use, advance care planning, and emergent and hospital care use are presented for home health care patients and hospice care discharges. A comparison of selected characteristics for 2000 and 2007 is also provided to highlight changes.

Methods: Estimates are based on data collected on agencies from the 2000 and 2007 National Home and Hospice Care Survey, conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics. Estimates are derived from data collected during interviews with administrators and staff designated by the administrators.

Results: Each day in 2007, there were an estimated 1,459,900 home health care patients. They were predominantly aged 65 years or over, female, and white. Their mean length of service was 315 days, and their most common primary diagnosis at admission was diabetes mellitus. About one-fourth of them had advance care planning and one-fifth had at least one overnight hospital stay since admission to the home health care agency. In 2007, there were 1,045,100 discharged hospice care patients. The majority of discharged patients were aged 65 or over, female, and white, and most were discharged deceased. Their mean length of service was 65 days, and the most common primary diagnosis at admission was malignant neoplasm. Most of them had advance care planning, and about one-fourth had three or more types of advance care planning instruments.