Dying at home: experience of the Verdun local community service centre

To demonstrate that it is possible for a team of palliative care nurses in an urban centre to care for more than 50% of their terminally ill patients at home until they die, and that medical care delivered in the home is a determining factor in death at home versus death in a hospital.

Analysis of place of death of terminally ill patients who died in 2012 and 2013 (N = 212) and who had been cared for by palliative care nurses, by type of medical care.

The centre local de services communautaires (CLSC) in Verdun, Que, an urban neighbourhood in southwest Montreal.

A total of 212 terminally ill patients.

Rate of deaths at home.

Of the 212 patients cared for at home by palliative care nurses, 56.6% died at home; 62.6% received medical home care from CLSC physicians, compared with 5.0% who did not receive medical home care from any physician.

Combined with a straightforward restructuring of the nursing care delivered by CLSCs, development of medical services delivered in the home would enable the more than 50% of terminally ill patients in Quebec who are cared for by CLSCs to die at home--something that most of them wish for.