Hospice care for patients living alone: results of a demonstration program

The Wissahickon Hospice initiated a demonstration program in 1988 to provide home hospice care to individuals living at home without primary care persons. This paper describes the planning process and admission requirements for the Live Alone Program and the evaluation results for 34 Live Alone patients compared to 105 regular hospice patients. Principal findings were that the hospice was able to maintain patients at home, to provide care safely to patients, and to enable home deaths for patients living alone. Patients living alone tended to require more supportive services than regular patients and to incur higher patient care costs.