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1h ago

Largest Study Finds Emergency Departments Are a Growing Gateway to Palliative and Hospice Care

The analysis documents a post‑pandemic surge with a shift toward palliative referrals, prompting calls for policy, training, plus research to support goal‑concordant care in emergency settings.

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Overview

  • Researchers evaluated 8,055 hospice and palliative consultations initiated from five Henry Ford Health emergency departments in metro Detroit between 2016 and 2023.
  • Palliative care constituted 58% of all consultations as palliative referrals rose from 27.4% to 53.6% while hospice referrals declined from 48.2% to 21.9%.
  • In the five years since COVID‑19 began, ED‑initiated hospice and palliative consultations increased 173.6%, signaling sharply higher demand.
  • The study was conducted by Henry Ford Health and Michigan State University investigators and appears in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine’s November 2025 issue.
  • Authors recommend policy action, workforce education, plus further research to bolster emergency‑based palliative services, noting that roughly one‑third of Americans visit an ED in their final month of life.