Utilisation of after-hours telephone support in a home-based hospice service.

ABSTRACT:

Background

After-hours support from hospice providers is instrumental to patients with serious illness who choose to remain at home, particularly at end of life. Utilisation of out-of-hours support has been much characterised in terms of frequency and nature of calls, but more needs to be known to inform service customisation and resource allocation to optimise care. To this end, we stratify reasons for using the after-hours helpline according to time sensitivity, and to explore disease and person factors associated with urgent calls.

Method

Electronic medical records for incoming calls from external parties outside workhours within a large home hospice in Singapore were analysed inductively, to identify patterns and associations along study objectives. Individual code books

SUBMITTER: Chong PH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9479431 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature