Long and Short Hospice Stays among Nursing Home Residents at the End of Life

OBJECTIVE: To identify characteristics of nursing homes and residents associated with particularly long or short hospice stays. DESIGN/SETTING: Observational study using administrative data on resident characteristics and hospice utilization from a large regional hospice linked with publicly available data on nursing home characteristics. PARTICIPANTS: A total of 13,479 residents who enrolled in hospice during 2001-2008. MEASUREMENTS: Logistic regression models of the probability of a long (>180 days) or very short (