Home Health Care and Discharged Hospice Care Patients: United States, 2000 and 2007

By 2050, an estimated 27 million people will need some type of long-term care (1). Of those 27 million, the majority will receive long-term care in the community. Home health and
hospice care agencies are major providers of formal, community-based long-term care. Currently, about 7.6 million people receive community-based care to help with post-acute and chronic conditions, disabilities, or terminal illnesses (2). This number is expected to increase as the population ages and the desire to ‘‘age in place’’ continues (3–5). Older Americans will increasingly constitute a larger percentage of the population in the future—from about 12% in 2006 to almost 20% in 2030 (6). The majority of people using home health and hospice care services are over age 65 years (7). Most of them have multiple chronic conditions, and home health and hospice care services enable many of them to receive services in their homes and communities (4).