New Study Points to Difficulty of Focusing Waste Reduction Efforts on EOL Care - New Research Insights

In the quest to reduce wasteful health care spending, some observers have targeted high spending in the last year of life, which represents one fourth of annual Medicare spending. But new research, supported in part by a research grant from NIHCM Foundation, highlights the difficulty of predicting who will die and how soon death will occur. To improve the value of our health care spending, it is necessary to assess how specific interventions affect quality of life and overall survival, all the while allowing for patient preferences regarding treatment decisions.

This Research Insights pulls out the key findings from this innovative work by Liran Einav, Amy Finkelstein, Sendhil Mullainathan and Ziad Obermeyer.