Coordinated and appropriate health care across sectors is an ongoing challenge. The baby boomer cohort effect coupled with an extension of life-expectancy has led to great concern among funders and policy makers that elder and end-of-life care will place unprecedented strain on the publicly funded health care system. However, there is currently little population- and system-wide data to identify the relative contributions of patient characteristics and components of healthcare delivery responsible for healthcare costs at the end of life. Moreover, population-level data on end-of-life health care use and cost are seldom reported across a comprehensive array of sectors, which has a potential in identifying the level of care being provided and areas where care can be optimized.