Direct admit.

End-of-life hospitalizations are getting a lot of attention these days. We’ve already discussed this summer's JAMA Onc article describing trends among older patients with brain tumors. And now, this week’s JCO pub explores hospitalization patterns throughout the first year of advanced cancer diagnosis. The big takeaways are that a whopping 71% are hospitalized over the course of that year, with most (>60%) occurring in the final weeks of life. What’s more, 16% of these patients are hospitalized a minimum of three times. So what? Well, these hospitalizations often rack up hefty bills and less often work to improve either survival or quality of life. Ok...so what can we do about it? For starters, we can aim to prepare patients and families for the expected symptoms and challenges faced by those dying of advanced cancer….which we have the unique ability to predict after witnessing them time and time again.