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The Importance of Assessing the Effectiveness of Care: The Case of Hospices

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2009

Maria K. Goddard
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Abstract

The hospice sector has expanded and diversified rapidly in recent years and has become associated with the provision of highly specialised, good quality care for the dying. However, as resources for health and social care are increasingly stretched, it will become necessary to demonstrate, rather than to assert, that the hospice sector provides superior care. This paper considers critically the methodology that has been used in the evaluation of the effectiveness of hospice care, focusing on the design of evaluations, what is measured, who measures it and how it has been measured in practice.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Social Policy , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , January 1993 , pp. 1 - 17
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

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