Palliative Care Provides Savings for Hospitals

A recent study reported in the Achives of Internal Medicine said that hospitals using palliative care teams save an average of $300 per patient per day. This post from the New Health Dialog Blog provided excellent coverage of the study:

The paper in the Sept. 8th edition of the Archives of Internal Medicine by Dr. Sean Morrison of the Mt Sinai Hospital and the Center to Advance Palliative Care and colleagues matched palliative care patients to "usual care" patients. The palliative care patients who were discharged alive had an adjusted net savings of $1,696 in direct costs per admission, or $279 per day. Amongst those who died, the adjusted net savings were higher, $4,908 per admission, and $374 per day. The savings came from reductions in laboratory work, intensive care cost (and for the patients who died, pharmaceuticals.) The team checked to make sure that the savings could be attributed to palliative care, not to a clinical course of action already determined before the palliative care team got involved with the case.