What The Pitt Gets Right About the U.S. Health Care System

“Katie Auriemma, MD, MSHP: Dying at home is often touted as a central part of a ‘good death’. Dying at home is cited as the majority preference of Americans. Hospital deaths, particularly for patients enrolled in home hospice, are often considered a system failure. However, preferences for end-of-life care are not always stable, and the reality of caring for someone at the end of life in the home setting, even with supportive services, can be incredibly challenging for patients and families. The importance of eliciting and honoring shifting preferences over time or with changes in health status is central to the provision of goal-concordant care. On a system level, we need better methods to identify and measure delivery of goal-concordant care so that ‘place of death’ is not the only marker of a ‘good death’.”

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