Fostering patients and families during end-of-life care.

2014 ◽  
Vol 32 (31_suppl) ◽  
pp. 150-150
Author(s):  
Michelle Tufaro ◽  
Jim Devries

150 Background: Hunterdon Palliative Care Program is a service owned and run by Hunterdon Medical Center, a non-profit, Magnet-recognized, community hospital of 178 beds for the residents of Hunterdon County in New Jersey. The program strives to provide the highest quality patient and family-centered care for seriously ill and terminal patients. Our goals include respect for patient autonomy, values and personal decisions, as well as minimizing of symptom distress, optimizing supportive interventions and services for patients and their families. The individual need of each patient is determined by an interdisciplinary process that includes the ongoing clarification of goals of care. In order to achieve this we have developed several tools to capture the unique needs of each patient and encourage a daily interdisciplinary process. Methods: Three tools were developed to incorporate and utilize the expertise of each individual team member which includes physicians, nurse practitioner, social worker, chaplain and a reiki master. Results: The tools are currently being used by all in-patient palliative care patients. The psych-social-spiritual assessment and care plan sheets are completed within 24 hours of the initial consultation. The documents are placed on the chart next to the written consult. Daily rounding sheets are placed in the progress notes section of the chart. All members of the patient’s treatment team are encouraged to utilize the forms. Both the care plan note and the daily rounding sheet include a section for input from other disciplines. A hot pink strip is located at the bottom of each sheet to make it easy for others to identify forms for integration into additional patient care plans. Conclusions: The Palliative Care Program was awarded Certification by The Joint Commission, with no recommendations for improvement! The interdisciplinary approach to a patient’s end of life needs was sited as "superior" for clinical documentation with special attention to the psycho-social spiritual assessment as a “best practice” standard.

Author(s):  
Judith A. Paice

Pain is one of the most common and most feared symptoms experienced by those with serious illness. The nurse’s role begins with assessment and continues through the development of a plan of care and its implementation. During this process, the nurse provides education and counseling to the patient, family, and other team members. Nurses also are critical for developing institutional policies and monitoring outcomes that ensure good pain management for all patients within their palliative care program. To provide optimal pain control, all healthcare professionals must understand the frequency of pain at the end of life, the barriers that prevent good management, the comprehensive assessment of this syndrome, and the treatments used to provide relief. Effective pain control and alleviation of suffering is highly dependent upon the strength of clinician, patient, and family communication and relationship. These are key strengths of nursing, at all phases of palliative care.


2014 ◽  
Vol 17 (5) ◽  
pp. 589-591 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa M. Niswander ◽  
Philene Cromwell ◽  
Jeanne Chirico ◽  
Alyssa Gupton ◽  
David N. Korones

2003 ◽  
Vol 6 (5) ◽  
pp. 715-724 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard D. Brumley ◽  
Susan Enguidanos ◽  
David A. Cherin

2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-186 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jackie Williams-Reade ◽  
Angela L. Lamson ◽  
Sharon M. Knight ◽  
Mark B. White ◽  
Sharon M. Ballard ◽  
...  

AbstractObjective:Due to multiple issues, integrated interdisciplinary palliative care teams in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) may be difficult to access, sometimes fail to be implemented, or provide inconsistent or poorly coordinated care. When implementing an effective institution-specific neonatal palliative care program, it is critical to include stakeholders from the clinical, operational, and financial worlds of healthcare. In this study, researchers sought to gain a multidisciplinary perspective into issues that may impact the implementation of a formal neonatal palliative care program at a tertiary regional academic medical center.Method:In this focused ethnography, the primary researcher conducted semistructured interviews that explored the perspectives of healthcare administrators, finance officers, and clinicians about neonatal palliative care. The perspectives of 39 study participants informed the identification of institutional, financial, and clinical issues that impact the implementation of neonatal palliative care services at the medical center and the planning process for a formal palliative care program on behalf of neonates and their families.Results:Healthcare professionals described experiences that influenced their views on neonatal palliative care. Key themes included: (a) uniqueness of neonatal palliative care, (b) communication and conflict among providers, (c) policy and protocol discrepancies, and (d) lack of administrative support.Significance of results:The present study highlighted several areas that are challenging in the provision of neonatal palliative care. Our findings underscored the importance of recognizing and procuring resources needed simultaneously from the clinical, operational, and financial worlds in order to implement and sustain a successful neonatal palliative care program.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claire Barth ◽  
Isabelle Colombet ◽  
Vincent Montheil ◽  
Olivier Huillard ◽  
Pascaline Boudou-Rouquette ◽  
...  

Abstract Background: Palliative care (PC) referral is recommended early in the course of advanced cancer. This study aims to describe, in an integrated onco-palliative care program (IOPC), patient’s profile when first referred to this program, timing of this referral and its impact on the trajectory of care at end-of-life. Patients and Methods: The IOPC combined the weekly onco-palliative meeting (OPM) dedicated to patients with incurable cancer, and/or the clinical evaluation by the PC team. Oncologists can refer to the multidisciplinary board of the OPM the patients for whom goals and organization of care need to be discussed. We analyzed all patients first referred at OPM in 2011-2013. We defined the index of precocity (IP), as the ratio of the time from first referral to death by the time from diagnosis of incurability to death, ranging from 0 (late referral) to 1 (early referral). Results: Of the 416 patients included, 57% presented with lung, urothelial cancers, or sarcoma. At first referral to IOPC, 76% were receiving antitumoral treatment, 63% were outpatients, 56% had a performance status ≤2 and 46% had a serum albumin level >35g/l. The median [1st-3rd quartile] IP was 0.39 [0.16-0.72], ranging between 0.53 [0.20-0.79] (earliest referral, i.e. close to diagnosis of incurability, for lung cancer) to 0.16 [0.07-0.56] (latest referral, i.e. close to death relatively to length of metastatic disease, for prostate cancer). Among 367 decedents, 42 (13%) received antitumoral treatment within 14 days before death, and 157 (43%) died in PC units.Conclusions: The IOPC is an effective organization to enable early integration of PC and decrease aggressiveness of care near the end-of life. The IP is a useful tool to model the timing of referral to IOPC, while taking into account each cancer types and therapeutic advances.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claire Barth ◽  
Isabelle Colombet ◽  
Vincent Montheil ◽  
Olivier Huillard ◽  
Pascaline Boudou-Rouquette ◽  
...  

Abstract Background : Palliative care (PC) referral is recommended early in the course of advanced cancer. This study aims to describe, in an integrated onco-palliative care program (IOPC), patient’s profile when first referred to this program, timing of this referral and its impact on the trajectory of care at end-of-life. Patients and Methods : The IOPC combined the weekly onco-palliative meeting (OPM) dedicated to patients with incurable cancer, and/or the clinical evaluation by the PC team. Oncologists can refer to the multidisciplinary board of the OPM the patients for whom goals and organization of care need to be discussed. We analyzed all patients first referred at OPM in 2011-2013. We defined the index of precocity (IP), as the ratio of the time from first referral to death by the time from diagnosis of incurability to death, ranging from 0 (late referral) to 1 (early referral). Results: Of the 416 patients included, 57% presented with lung, urothelial cancers, or sarcoma. At first referral to IOPC, 76% were receiving antitumoral treatment, 63% were outpatients, 56% had a performance status ≤2 and 46% had a serum albumin level >35g/l. The median [1 st -3 rd quartile] IP was 0.39 [0.16-0.72], ranging between 0.53 [0.20-0.79] (earliest, for lung cancer) to 0.16 [0.07-0.56] (latest, for prostate cancer). Among 367 decedents, 42 (13%) received antitumoral treatment within 14 days before death, and 157 (43%) died in PC units. Conclusions : The IOPC is an effective organization to enable early integration of PC and decrease aggressiveness of care near the end-of life. The IP is a useful tool to model the trajectory of care while taking into account each cancer types and therapeutic advances.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claire Barth ◽  
Isabelle Colombet ◽  
Vincent Montheil ◽  
Olivier Huillard ◽  
Pascaline Boudou-Rouquette ◽  
...  

Abstract Background: Palliative care (PC) referral is recommended early in the course of advanced cancer. This study aims to describe, in an integrated onco-palliative care program (IOPC), patient’s profile when first referred to this program, timing of this referral and its impact on the trajectory of care at end-of-life. Patients and Methods: The IOPC combined the weekly onco-palliative meeting (OPM) dedicated to patients with incurable cancer, and/or the clinical evaluation by the PC team. Oncologists can refer to the multidisciplinary board of the OPM the patients for whom goals and organization of care need to be discussed. We analyzed all patients first referred at OPM in 2011-2013. We defined the index of precocity (IP), as the ratio of the time from first referral to death by the time from diagnosis of incurability to death, ranging from 0 (late referral) to 1 (early referral). Results: Of the 416 patients included, 57% presented with lung, urothelial cancers, or sarcoma. At first referral to IOPC, 76% were receiving antitumoral treatment, 63% were outpatients, 56% had a performance status ≤2 and 46% had a serum albumin level >35g/l. The median [1st-3rd quartile] IP was 0.39 [0.16-0.72], ranging between 0.53 [0.20-0.79] (earliest referral, i.e. close to diagnosis of incurability, for lung cancer) to 0.16 [0.07-0.56] (latest referral, i.e. close to death relatively to length of metastatic disease, for prostate cancer). Among 367 decedents, 42 (13%) received antitumoral treatment within 14 days before death, and 157 (43%) died in PC units.Conclusions: The IOPC is an effective organization to enable early integration of PC and decrease aggressiveness of care near the end-of life. The IP is a useful tool to model the timing of referral to IOPC, while taking into account each cancer types and therapeutic advances.


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