Patient Home Visits: Measuring Outcomes of a Community Model for Palliative Care Education

Background: Health care professionals may have limited exposure to home-based care. There is no published literature that has described the experiences and satisfaction of participation in patient home visits (PHV). Objective: The objective of this article is to describe the characteristics of PHV, our approach, and evaluation by participants over a nine-year period. Methods: We conducted a review of surveys completed by participants in PHV from 2005-2013. All participants anonymously completed the evaluation questionnaires at the end of PHVs. Different PHV assessment forms were used for the 2005-2010 and 2011-2013 time periods. Results: A total of 34 PHVs were conducted with 106 patients and approximately 750 participants with a mean of 3 patients and 22 participants per PHV between 2005 and 2013. For 18 PHVs there are 317 surveys completed with 353 participants, making it a 90% response rate. Responding participants were physicians 125/543 (23%) and other professionals 418/543 (77%). In both time periods of 2005-2010 and 2011-2013 a survey with a 1 (completely agree) to 5 (completely disagree) scale was used. Agreeing that PHV was an effective teaching tool during 2005-2010 were 335/341 (98%); during 2011-2013, 191/202 (95%) agreed that PHV provided increased understanding and sharing of best practices in palliative care. Conclusions: PHV was perceived by participants as an effective way of providing interactive community education. A broad range of themes were addressed, and the participants reported high levels of learning in all domains of palliative care. There were no cases of patient or relative expression of distress as a result of PHV.