The median length of time between nursing home entrance and death is 5 months

A quicker TLDR to try and summarize methodology and findings:

> We examined a consecutive sample of HRS subjects who died between 1992 and 2006. HRS subjects are a representative sample of Americans over the age of 50 who were living in the community at the time of their initial interview. The HRS is conducted by the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan and is sponsored by the National Institute on Aging. The HRS is designed to study transitions in health and wealth among older adults.

> Two thousand three hundred and one subjects primarily resided in a nursing home at the end of life. We excluded subjects with missing information regarding their exact year of placement in nursing home (n=68), age at time of placement in nursing home (n=27), not having completed a core interview within two years of their placement in nursing home (n=203), not having the exact date of death (n=71), having reported nursing home placement after the date of death (n=54) and having an irreconcilable nursing home admission date (i.e. subjects reported as being interviewed in the community after the nursing home admission date) (n=67). Our final sample was comprised of 1,817 decedents.

> Over the years 1992 to 2006, 8,433 HRS participants died, and 27.3% of these decedents resided in a nursing home at the time of death. While subjects resided in a nursing home at the end of life, their physical location of death was distinct for many. Of the 1,817 subjects in our study sample who resided in a nursing home at the end of life, next-of-kin stated that the physical location of death was the nursing home for 70.4% of subjects, the hospital for 22.6%, in-inpatient hospice facilities for 3.5%, home for 0.4%, and 3.1% died elsewhere. The majority of decedents were Non-Hispanic White (81.5%), female (59.1%), and had a mean age of 83.3 (SD 9.0) years at the time of admission to a nursing home.

> The mean length of stay among decedents was 13.7 months; however, this was explained by a relatively small number of subjects with long lengths of stay. The median length of stay was only 5 months (IQR 1-20). The majority of residents had short lengths of stay, 65% percent of decedents had lengths of stay of less than one year, and over 53% died within 6 months of admission.

> We do not know the reason for admission to the nursing home, and some patients may have been admitted specifically for end-of-life care. We excluded patients admitted to residential hospice facilities, although some residential hospice facilities may have been located within nursing homes.