BACKGROUND

Identifying the patient-specific, disease-related, and hospitalization profiles of admitted patients referred to the Palliative & Hospice Care Program (PHCP)—including the pattern of services rendered to them over a period of three years is valuable groundwork statistics for a nascent institution looking into improving their service delivery.

METHODS

After total population sampling of 304 distinct referral cases from July 2021 to June 2024, a retrospective chart review on electronic medical records uploaded to the Health Information Management Systems was done. With approval from the institutional ethics board, and guided by a data collection form, data were gathered and prepared upon completion before subjecting to descriptive statistics.

RESULTS

Majority of patients referred to the PHCP were elderly (50.56%), with a higher prevalence of females (60.2%). Most were of Roman Catholic faith (94.7%). Most referrals were cancer cases (74.24%) with dyspnea (26.9%) as the usual complaint upon admission. More than half of the referrals were from Internal Medicine (58.1%). Half of the patients expired during their hospital stay (52.3%). Average time from admission to referral was 8.49 days on the overall mean length of stay of 13.46 days. Psychosocial Support (97.37%), Transition to Home Care (42.11%), and Motivational Counseling (32.24%) were the most frequently rendered PHCP service to the referred cases during the three-year study period.

CONCLUSION

The demand for psychosocial support and transition-to-home services spells the need for capacity building of community-led initiatives and home-based interventions. Reapplication of the study method to other institutions in future studies is recommended to help gain broader perspective on palliative care service delivery. Overall, the increasing trend in in-patient referrals underscores the growing recognition of the importance of palliative care in improving patient outcomes and quality experience at the of life.

Human ; Hospice Care