More Americans Are Choosing to Die at Home Rather than in Hospitals

According to Associated Press, more Americans are dying at home instead of in hospitals – “a trend that reflects more hospice care and progress toward the kind of end that most people say they want.” This is the first time since the early 1900s. A report from New England Journal of Medicine also stated that deaths in nursing homes have declined.

“It’s a good thing. Death has become overly medicalized over the last century,” said Dr. Haider Warraich of the Veterans Affairs Boston Healthcare System.

Sarah Cross, a graduate student from Warraich and Duke University, used government health statistics on death from natural causes from 2003-2017. “The portion that occurred in hospitals fell from 40% to 30% over that period and in nursing homes from 24% to 21%. Deaths in homes rose, from 24% to 31%. Some assisted living centers may have been counted as homes; researchers had no way to tell,” said Associated Press.