Longitudinal patterns and predictors of healthcare utilization among cancer patients on home-based palliative care in Singapore: a group-based multi-trajectory analysis

BACKGROUND: Home-based palliative care (HPC) is considered to moderate the problem of rising healthcare utilization of cancer patients at end-of-life. Reports however suggest a proportion of HPC patients continue to experience high care intensity. Little is known about differential trajectories of healthcare utilization in patients on HPC. Thus, we aimed to uncover the heterogeneity of healthcare utilization trajectories in HPC patients and identify predictors of each utilization pattern. METHODS: This is a cohort study of adult cancer patients referred by Singapore Health Services to HCA Hospice Service who died between 1st January 2018 and 31st March 2020. We used patient-level data to capture predisposing, enabling, and need factors for healthcare utilization. Group-based multi-trajectory modelling was applied to identify trajectories for healthcare utilization based on the composite outcome of emergency department (ED) visits, hospitalization, and outpatient visits. RESULTS: A total of 1572 cancer patients received HPC (median age, 71 years; interquartile range, 62–80 years; 51.1% female). We found three distinct trajectory groups: group 1 (31.9% of cohort) with persistently low frequencies of healthcare utilization, group 2 (44.1%) with persistently high frequencies, and group 3 (24.0%) that begin with moderate frequencies, which dropped over the next 9 months before increasing in the last 3 months. Predisposing (age, advance care plan completion, and care preferences), enabling (no medical subsidy, primary decision maker), and need factors (cancer type, comorbidity burden and performance status) were significantly associated with group membership. High symptom needs increased ED visits and hospitalizations in all three groups (ED visits, group 1–3: incidence rate ratio [IRR] 1.74–6.85; hospitalizations, group 1–3: IRR 1.69–6.60). High home visit intensity reduced outpatient visits in all three groups (group 1–3 IRR 0.54–0.84), while it contributed to reduction of ED visits (IRR 0.40; 95% CI 0.25–0.62) and hospitalizations (IRR 0.37; 95% CI 0.24–0.58) in group 2. CONCLUSIONS: This study on HPC patients highlights three healthcare utilization trajectories with implications for targeted interventions. Future efforts could include improving advance care plan completion, supporting care preferences in the community, proactive interventions among symptomatic high-risk patients, and stratification of home visit intensity. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12916-022-02513-y.