INDICATOR NAME
Name
Emergency Department Visits by Home Care Clients in Last 30 Days of Life
Alternate Name
Home care clients who had an unplanned emergency department visit in last 30 days of life
INDICATOR DESCRIPTION
Description
This is the percentage of publicly funded home care clients, of all ages, who had an unplanned visit to the emergency department in the last 30 days of life. A lower percentage of clients is better. Unplanned visits in the last month of life, which can be an extremely difficult experience for clients, could indicate they did not receive the care they needed in the community.
Indicator Status
Active
HQO Reporting tool/product
Public Reports (annual report, bulletins and theme reports)
Dimension
Effective
Type
Outcome
DEFINITION AND SOURCE INFORMATION
Unit of Measurement
Percentage
Calculation Methods
Numerator divided by the denominator times 100.
Numerator including inclusion/exclusion
The number of decedents specified in the denominator who had at least one unplanned emergency department visit within 30 days before death.
Unscheduled/unplanned ED visits are identified by:
NACRS variables VISITTYPE = [1,2,4] OR SCHEDEDVISIT = N
Where VISITTYPE Values are:
1= Unplanned Emergency Dep visit for a new clinical condition
2 = Unplanned return visit to Emergency Dep for the same clinical condition
3 = Planned return visit to follow-up to the Emergency Dep visit for the same clinical condition
4 = Clients referred for Emergency Department service provider assessment
5 = Clients referred and seen by a non-Emergency Dept service provider SCHEDEDVISIT Values: N = Not scheduled, Y = Scheduled
Denominator including inclusion/exclusion
The number of home care clients who died in the given fiscal year
Exclusions:
Decedents who were in hospital for the entire period of 1 month before death, as people who are in hospital during this time cannot have an unplanned ED visit.
Adjustment (risk, age/sex standardization)- detailed
N/A
Data Source
Home Care Database (HCD), National Ambulatory Care Reporting System (NACRS), PCCF+ version 5k6A, Registered Persons Database (RPDB)
Data provided to HQO by
Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES)
Reported Levels of comparability /stratifications (defined)
Age, Income, Other, Province, Region, Rurality, Sex
OTHER RELEVANT INFORMATION
Caveats and Limitations
Not all emergency department visits are avoidable and do not always represent poor quality care.
Comments Detailed
1) 30 days are subtracted from the end of each fiscal year (i.e., March) to allow for 30 day follow up during the last reported quarter. This is done for results by fiscal year and by fiscal quarter, resulting in the fourth fiscal quarter having smaller counts than the other three quarters.
TAGS
Sector
Home Care
Type
Outcome
Topic
End-of-life / Palliative
Dimension
Effective
Source
Home Care Database (HCD), National Ambulatory Care Reporting System (NACRS), PCCF+ version 5k6A, Registered Persons Database (RPDB)
PUBLISH
Publish Datetime
20/11/2018 15:23:00