[Palliative care for patients at home]

In the Czech Republic, around 70 % of deceased people die in hospital settings every year. On the other hand, surveys showed that almost 78% Czech wish to die at home. General practitioners take care of most of dying at their homes. Unfortunately, hours of attendance and visiting hours are not always sufficient when complications develop and health status rapidly deteriorates and the goal is to die at home. Significant proportion of patients is then transferred to acute hospital settings and lots of them dies there during so called terminal hospitalization. Mobile hospice services (mobile specialized palliative care), multidisciplinary teams with medical staff (doctor/nurse) available 24 hours a day 7 days a week, are newly developing services with potential for change in these undesirable trends and for increasing chance of peaceful dying at home.