Care for Patients in the Last Months of Life

Abstract

End-of-life care has become an issue of great clinical and public health importance. Developments contributing to this issue are the growing number of elderly people, the increasingly chronic nature of dying, and the growing recognition that end-of-life care is less than optimal in many countries.^1-3 However, there is a lack of population-based and nationwide data evaluating and monitoring the care that patients are receiving in the final months of life on a societal level.^3,4 From the analysis of mortality statistics based on official death certification, we have learned how many people die, at what age, from what causes, and where,⁵ but no such systematic population-based data are being gathered concerning the (quality of) end-of-life care provision.^1-4