Supportive and palliative day care centres in Flanders: added value for users and health economic impact.

Abstract:Background
Presently there are five palliative day care centres in Flanders (De Kust, Coda, Sint-Camillus, Heidehuis and TOPAZ), with the aim of receiving and caring for people with chronic, life-threatening conditions in a homely surrounding, with a unique care service, where one can also have peer contact with people in similar predicaments. Day care centres remain a marginal service in the Flemish palliative care landscape, yet this service has never been thoroughly evaluated.

Aims
To study the (care) needs of the target groups, i.e. both patients and their informal caregivers, and to what extent these needs are met by palliative day care centres
To study the health economic impact of palliative day care, i.e. whether their use, intensity and/or timing are associated with variation in total health care consumption for patients at the end of life

Methods
The care needs of clients will be studied through a questionnaire survey of all day care centre visitors and their informal caregivers over a period of six months. The health economic impact of day care centres will be analysed through a linked administrative database of health care claims data from 2013 to 2016.