Late referral to palliative care consultation service: length of stay and in-hospital mortality outcomes

Abstract

Our study suggests that late referrals may have a marked negative impact on health outcomes, which argues for the design and implementation of hospital policies that encourage early referral to palliative care for advanced cancer patients.

Improvement in symptom burden within one day after palliative care consultation in a cohort of gynecologic oncology inpatients

“…Our data suggest that patient with high symptom burden may be an appropriate group to consider for standardized palliative care consultation. Our data also add to the growing body of literature supporting the benefits of early integration of palliative care, both earlier rather than later in the disease course [32,[38][39][40] and earlier rather than later in the course of hospitalizations [41][42]. In our cohort, 72% of palliative care consultations happened the day of or the day after admission.…”

A new frontier in healthcare risk management: Working to reduce avoidable patient suffering

“…But despite their widely accepted importance, patients are often not referred to these services as early as they could be. And as a result, they do not benefit as much as they should from the services provided through hospice care …”

The Role of Family Meeting In Dealing With Rejection Towards Hospital Discharge of Terminally Ill Cancer Patients

“…Early integration of palliative care in oncology has been suggested by various oncology and palliative care associations such as American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO), the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN), the European Association of Palliative Care (EAPC), as well as by Institute for Clinical System Improvement (ICSI) (4), and was aimed to achieve best possible quality of life and quality of death, including the place for end-of-life care and death according to the patient's preference (5). Unfortunately, palliative care at Dharmais Cancer Hospital is often consulted at the end of the disease trajectory when curative treatment has been exhausted, which potentially results in suboptimal pain and symptoms management, increase suffering, failure to discuss or adhere to advance care planning, and unplanned hospital deaths (6,7).…”