Trajectories of health care contact days for patients with stage IV non-small cell lung cancer

Patients with stage IV non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) experience substantial morbidity and mortality. Contact days (ie, the number of days with health care contact outside the home) measure how much of a persons life is consumed by health care. In a cohort study including 5785 decedents with stage IV NSCLC in Ontario, Canada, the median survival was 3.5 months, and patients had spent 1 in 3 of those days with health care contact outside the home. Normalized trajectories followed a U-shaped distribution such that contact days were most frequent immediately after diagnosis and immediately before death, with a middle trough. The authors conclude that patients’ and their care partners’ lives may be consumed by health care, and that there is a need to benchmark appropriateness, better support patients and care partners, and improve care delivery.