Background. Palliative care (PC) infrastructure has developed differently around the globe. Whereas some institutions consider the palliative care unit (PCU) a valuable component, others report that the sole provision of a stateof-the art palliative care consultation service (PCCS) suffices to adequately care for the severely ill and dying.Objective. To aid institutional planning, this study aimed at gathering patient data to distinguish assignments of a concomitantly run PCU and PCCS at a large hospital and academic medical center.Methods. Demographics, Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status, symptom/problem burden, discharge modality, and team satisfaction with care for all 601 PCU and 851 PCCS patients treated in 2009 and 2010 were retrospectively analyzed.Results. Patients admitted to the PCU versus those con-