Detailed Instructions: Generate an explanation for the given claim using the provided supporting material from the paragraph. Please consider the following points while generating an output. 1) The claim will always have supporting proof in the paragraph, and the paragraph will have a clear point of view supporting the claim. 2) There can be instances where direct correlation to the claim is not available. Make use of the sentences in the paragraph to provide a corresponding output supporting the claim. 3) The explanation should be at least one and at most twelve sentences long.
Problem:Paragraph: "While it could have been more detailed about the actual numbers involved,this story explained that the cost of palliative care is currently comprisedprimarilyof fees for doctor visits. It could have noted that this is the only component of palliative care that is billable currently, and that other members of the interdisciplinary care team usually cannot bill, so the cost of their salaries/time is usually borne by the institution. This storyis also the only one of the four we reviewed to directly explain that palliative care might reduce overall health care costs by reducing hospital stays, emergency treatments, and futile end-of-life care. Far from ideal, but a borderline satisfactory in our view. None of the other stories we reviewed even came closeto matching this. Although the description of the survival benefit was accurate and other important outcomes were at least mentioned, the story provides relative not absolute differences in its reporting on depression scores. It notes that depression ""was less than half as common in the palliative care group"" compared with the standardcare group. So to readers this could mean that depression was found in2% vs.less than 1% of patients in the standard and palliative care groups a trivial difference. As it turns out,depression was found in38% of standard care patients vs. 16% of palliative care patients, which isa veryrobust finding. Providing the absolute numbers to readers wouldhave allowed them to judge the importance of thisfinding for themselves. As with the competing coverage, we'll rule this one not applicable since the harms of palliative care are thought to be minimal. On the positive side, this story did a good job of describing the experiment and its outcomes and explained that the study is ""one of the best tests yet of palliative care"" which it is. However, this story, like much of the competing coverage, failed to make note of any limitationsin the research. We especially think it should have challenged the assertion, made by an editorialist,that""palliative care should be a routine part of managing any serious illness."" We think it's a stretch to draw that conclusion considering the limitedevidence we have to supportit so far. Soliciting a comment from someone outside the field of palliative medicine (a point addressed below under ""Sources"") may have yielded a counterpoint to this argument. No disease-mongering here. The story included multiple interviews with investigators and other experts and satisfies the criterion. However,we should point out that all of these sources could be loosely described as boosters for this particular study or palliative medicine in general. Two of the experts are the current and former presidents of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicinea professional group that obviously supports increased awareness and use of palliative care. The editorialists quotedare affiliated with the department of palliative medicine at a major medicalcenter. This reporterclearlywas not afraid to pick upthe phone and talk to peoplean instinct which we applaud. But wewish she had spoken to someone an oncologist, surgeonor geriatricianoutside of the palliative care fieldmore likely to provide adifferent, perhaps more cautious,perspective on the results. As noted in the competing reviews, the point of the study was to compare early palliative care with existing standard cancer treatment. However, the story could have provided more detail on the existing alternative ""standard of care"" oncology care which many have thought to be ""state of the art"". This story didn't mention any of the barriers patients may face inobtainingaccess to palliative treatmentsespecially the specific type of care offered in this study. While there is a significant number of larger hospitals that offer inpatient palliative care consultation or services, many fewer offer outpatient palliative care services, which was the intervention in this study. Such an article may encourage cancer centers to initiate such services, but they do not often currently exist. This story did a good job of describingthe palliative care offered in this study and how it differed from ""comfort care"" offered in the last few months of life. It accurately portrayed the novelty of the research. It is clear that this story didn't rely on a press release." Claim: Study shows value of quality-of-life cancer care
Solution:
The story wasmarred, however,by a failure to discuss any limitations of the research or to properly quantify the benefits. In addition, its sourcing included only experts likely to hold a favorable view of palliative medicine. We cannottackle the health care crisis withoutlooking atthe costs of care at the end of life. Medicarespends about $50 billion dollars per year on care during the last two months of life. Decreasing the suffering and improving the quality of life of people with advanced illness (lung cancer in this case) is an important goal in and of itself and argues for the need to improve the quality of cancer care to address these issues.