Time Spent Away from Home in the Year Following High‐Risk Cancer Surgery in Older Adults

OBJECTIVES: To understand where older adults spend time (at home, in the hospital, or in a nursing home) in the year following high-risk cancer surgery. DESIGN: Retrospective cohort study. SETTING: Medicare beneficiaries using data from Medicare Inpatient claims to ascertain hospital days and the Minimum Data Set to ascertain nursing home days. PARTICIPANTS: Beneficiaries who underwent high-risk cancer surgery (cystectomy, pancreaticoduodenectomy, gastrectomy, or esophagectomy) were identified to determine cumulative time spent away from home in the year following surgery. MEASUREMENTS: Adjusted percentages of time spent away from home (ie, days in a hospital or nursing home) were modeled for the year following surgery. RESULTS: A total of 37 748 beneficiaries underwent high-risk cancer surgery during the study period, and 28.3% died within 1 year. Overall, beneficiaries spent 13.9 +/- 26.2 days in the hospital (over 1.5 +/- 2.0 hospital readmissions) and 37.2 +/- 50.6 days in the nursing home (over 1.5 +/- 1.0 admissions) in the year following surgery. Among beneficiaries who were alive and dead at 1 year, 18.5% and 30.1% of time was spent away from home, respectively. Beneficiaries who were initially discharged to a facility following surgery and died within 1 year spent 44.4% of their final year away from home. CONCLUSION: Time spent away from home in the hospital and/or nursing home in the year following high-risk cancer surgery is substantial among Medicare beneficiaries. This information is crucial in counseling patients on postoperative expectations and may additionally influence preoperative decision making. J Am Geriatr Soc 68:505-510, 2020.