Economic impact analysis of an end-of-life programme for nursing home residents

Background: Due to limited end-of-life discussions and the absence of palliative care, hospitalisations are frequent at the end of life among nursing home residents in Singapore, resulting in high health-care costs. Aim: Our objective was to evaluate the economic impact of Project Care at the End-of-Life for Residents in homes for the Elderly (CARE) programme on nursing home residents compared to usual end-of-life care. Design and settings/participants: Project CARE was introduced in seven nursing homes to provide advance care planning and palliative care for residents identified to be at risk of dying within 1 year. The cases consisted of nursing home residents enrolled in the Project CARE programme for at least 3 months. A historical group of nursing home residents not in any end-of-life care programme was chosen as the matched controls. Cost differences between the two groups were analysed over the last 3 months and final month of life. Results: The final sample comprised 48 Project CARE cases and 197 controls. Compared to the controls, the cases were older with more comorbidities and higher nursing needs. After risk adjustment, Project CARE cases demonstrated per-resident cost savings of SGD$7129 (confidence interval: SGD$4544–SGD$9714) over the last 3 months of life and SGD$3703 (confidence interval: SGD$1848–SGD$5557) over the last month of life (US$1 = SGD$1.3). Conclusion: This study demonstrated substantial savings associated with an end-of-life programme. With a significant proportion of the population in Singapore requiring nursing home care in the near future, these results could assist policymakers and health-care providers in decision-making on allocation of health-care resources.