“Death Beds” is a series of three enterprise reports that explore why people in the New York Metro area tend to spend their dying days in hospitals instead of at home or in hospice care. The first report, “Terminally Ill, Constantly Hospitalized,” probed the medical culture of New York and why officials have not made progress in their efforts to give patients greater control over the time, place and circumstances of their deaths. The second report, “Too Little, Too Late for many New Yorkers Seeking Hospice,” raised questions about why more patients are not given access to hospice care, despite its availability to many people — even those on Medicaid. In the third piece, “Living Wills Slowly Take Root,” we discuss why so few New Yorkers have living wills compared to the rest of the country, and what people should know about creating and updating them. In all, the series drove home the financial and emotional costs behind the disturbing trends we found in the data.”
