Racial divide in end-of-life care

At the end of their lives, African-Americans are more likely to have been admitted to a hospital, land in the ER and discontinue hospice care, according to the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

Patterns remained after accounting for patient illness, demographics, and type of hospice, said Melissa Aldridge, Ph.D., Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

“These higher rates of emergency department use, hospital admission, and hospice disenrollment by blacks compared with whites were attributable to racial differences within hospices rather than systemic differences,” the study noted.