A Pivot to Palliative: An Interdisciplinary Program Development in Preparation for a Coronavirus Patient Surge in the Emergency Department

Abstract

The current literature on palliative care in the emergency department indicates the prominent need for emergency nurses and palliative care clinicians to better understand their respective roles and responsibilities to improve palliative care for ED patients. This article contributes a program template, process and educational and support resources for emergency nurses focused on improving palliative care in the emergency department during the coronavirus disease pandemic. Key implications for emergency nursing practice found in this article are the potential to tailor, replicate, and test our program to improve palliative care in other ED settings.

Temas e pesquisas em saúde no contexto da pandemia da Covid-19: Volume 1

“…Com o crescente número pessoas afetadas pela Covid-19 com prognóstico incerto devido a presença de sinais e sintomas complexos, houve uma demanda crescente cuidados paliativos o que gerou imensa sobrecarga e até mesmo o colapso em alguns serviços (FLORÊNCIO et al, 2020). Quanto a realização do planejamento do cuidado, aponta-se aspectos como necessidade de intervenções imediatas para salvar vidas, a incerteza quanto a melhor conduta de cuidado a ser tomada, assim como a intensa sobrecarga dos profissionais de saúde podem se constituir em possíveis barreiras para a prática da assistência paliativa em conformidade com os princípios estabelecidos nesse tipo de cuidado (DUNDIN et al, 2020;GALANIS et al, 2021).…”

Infection Control and Vaccine Hesitancy in the Emergency Department

“…2 This JEN issue also includes 7 COVID-19-specific manuscripts. [3][4][5][6][7][8][9] As the state of knowledge and evidence-based practice have been rapidly evolving in the pandemic, the manuscripts reflect updated knowledge at the time of submission. These manuscripts provide crucial evidence and practice application for both the ongoing pandemic response as well as reference material for future infectious disease prevention and response stages.…”

“…For the most critical patients with severe COVID-19, intensive care experts Tu et al 3 publish their case reviews of patients treated with extracorporeal membrane oxygenation as a clinical reasoning resource to introduce, refresh, and deepen the emergency nursing knowledge of overall extracorporeal membrane oxygenation management. Furthermore, Dundin et al 9 developed a program to improve palliative care in the emergency department as part of disaster preparations for a COVID-19 surge. Providing compassionate and dignified end-of-life care in the emergency department is a longstanding and patient-centered practice where the emergency care sector has demonstrated a clear need for specialty-wide improvement.…”

“…[10][11][12] Like many welldesigned disaster preparedness programs, the actual disaster did not create the full need for the planned program as the authors had anticipated, but the program development process, template, and educational tools are included here in JEN as a resource for program replication and testing in other emergency departments, regardless of pandemic conditions. 9 This issue of JEN also includes infectious disease-related manuscripts on topics of Ebola, 13 HIV, 14 rabies, 15 and PPE, 8,13 vaccine, 16 antibiotic, 17 antipyretic, 18 and phlebotomy 19 interventions.…”

A Qualitative Study on the Care Experience of Emergency Department Nurses during the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Therefore, enhancing and acknowledging the value of nursing cannot be withdrawn after the epidemic crisis ends [ 19 , 24 , 26 ]. Researchers are calling for more nursing staff to participate in COVID-19 epidemic control-related studies and discussions to compile and develop the roles of nurses in epidemic control in response to future public health emergencies [ 15 , 22 , 27 ]. There is a lack of evidence related to the care experience of emergency department nurses.…”