Introduction:

home assistance is an ideal palliative care system because it can reduce hospital admission, outpatient visits and it can improve patients’ and caregivers’ quality of life. Since 2015, the pediatric palliative care unit of the main Uruguayan pediatric public hospital has provided coordinated home care.

Objectives:

1) to describe the characteristics of the children assisted during the first year the program operated, 2) to analyze emergency consultations, hospitalizations and hospitalization days during the previous and the following year the program was started. Materials and methods: descriptive, retrospective study. Source: computerized anonymized files. Participants: all children and adolescents assisted between 6/8/ 2015- 6/8/ 2016.

Results:

the study included 64 children who received 289 visits, median age: 6 years (2 months - 15 years); 64% had severe non-progressive neurological impairment; Medical technological devices: 64%. Median visits / patient: 4 (1- 26). Frequency in the previous year / in the following year; p value; magnitude of effect (r) of the variables studied: emergency consultations: 192/164; (p=0.14); r=0.19 (low rate); number of hospitalizations: 81/42; (p=0,001); r=0,47 (average rate); hospital days: 866/219; (p=0,000); r=0.59 (high rate).

Conclusions:

during the first year that the home palliative care program was carried out, emergency consultations, hospitalizations and hospitalization days significantly dropped. This information could be useful for the implementation of new services.

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