3/4 of adult day services centers keep advance directives on hand

(HealthDay)—Just over three-quarters of U.S. adult day services centers (ADSCs) maintain documentation of participants' advance directives, according to a report published Sept. 12 by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention National Center for Health Statistics.

Jessica Penn Lendon, Ph.D., from the National Center for Health Statistics in Hyattsville, Md., and colleagues used data from the 2016 National Study of Long-Term Care Providers to determine the percentage of ADSCs that maintain documentation of participants' advance directives by region and center characteristics.

The researchers found that 78.1 percent of ADSCs maintained documentation of advance directives. The Northeast had the highest percentage among the U.S. regions. However, among ADSCs that maintained documentation, only 38 percent of participants had an advance directive in their files. Compared with ADSCs that were not Medicaid-licensed, a higher percentage of Medicaid-licensed ADSCs maintained documentation of advance directives. Compared with medium and large ADSCs, small ADSCs had a higher percentage of participants with advance directives.

"These findings show policy-relevant differences regarding advance directives across U.S. regions and by key characteristics of ADSCs," the authors write.