The La Crosse (Wisconsin) health care organisations began implementation of a regional wide advance care planning (ACP) effort that was in full effect by the spring of 1993. This program is now known as Respecting Choices®. These ACP efforts have continued to the present. In La Crosse County (pop. approx. 120,000) it has been determined that there is a high prevalence of planning at the time of death (96%) and that almost all of these plans are found in the patients’ health records (99%). But is there any evidence that an ACP program changes the utilisation of health services or affects the cost of care?

In this session, the presenter will consider this question. He will look at both data collected in La Crosse as well as data from the Dartmouth Atlas. This evidence will be compared to other studies that have looked at the economic impact of ACP to see if there are some trends in the data. Finally, there will be a discussion of what will be needed to more clearly answer the question about the economic impact of ACP.