End-of-life care

End of Life Care (EC) is a subgroup of indicators within the HCQO database and provides data on the quality of care provided to people who are near the end of life. End of life care is a key indicator of healthcare quality, as high rates of hospital or acute care deaths, and frequent unplanned hospital readmissions in the final months of life may reflect gaps in access to and adequacy of community-based or palliative care. The database includes indicators on deaths occurring in inpatient acute care and hospital settings, and on the proportion of patients with unplanned readmissions during the last 30 or 180 days of life. These indicators focus on individuals who die due to conditions such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, chronic respiratory disease, and dementia. Indicators are reported as crude rates.

For further information, please consult:

• The HCQO Definitions document provides indicator definitions and calculation methodologies of HCQO indicators


• The Sources and Methods survey on End of Life Care (EC) provides detailed country-specific information


• The OECD’s Health System Performance Assessment (HSPA) Framework outlines how HCQO indicators relate to the OECD’s HSPA domains of Access, Quality and People’s needs and preferences