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High-quality end-of-life care can ease suffering for patients with many serious diseases, but the patterns and quality of such care have been studied primarily in patients with cancer. Researchers reviewed medical records of >57,000 patients who died in U.S. Veterans Affairs (VA) facilities between 2009 and 2012 to determine primary diagnoses and factors associated with end-of-life care. Families of 34,000 of these patients completed the VA's “Bereaved Family Survey,” which assessed perceptions of the quality of end-of-life care.
Compared with patients who had cancer or dementia, patients with end-stage renal disease, cardiopulmonary failure, frailty, and other diagnoses were significantly less likely to have received palliative care (PC) co…