Changes in the Care Setting of First Consults to Palliative and Supportive Care over a 7-Year Period (original) (raw)
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The oncologist, 2017
Early palliative care for advanced cancer patients improves quality of life and survival, but less is known about its effect on intensive care unit (ICU) use at the end of life. This analysis assessed the effect of a comprehensive early palliative care program on ICU use and other outcomes among patients with advanced cancer. A retrospective cohort of patients with advanced cancer enrolled in an early palliative care program (n = 275) was compared with a concurrent control group of patients receiving standard care (n = 195) during the same time period by using multivariable logistic regression analysis. The multidisciplinary outpatient palliative care program used early end-of-life care planning, weekly interdisciplinary meetings to discuss patient status, and patient-reported outcomes assessment integrated within the electronic health record. Patients in the control group had statistically significantly higher likelihood of ICU admission at the end of life (odds ratios [ORs]: last ...
Introduction: Palliative care is a multidisciplinary approach that aims to improve the quality of life of patients with lifethreatening illnesses. It has been recognized as a crucial part of patient care in oncology. Palliative care service was established in the comprehensive cancer center of King Fahad Medical City (KFMC), Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in March 2010. The objective of this study was to determine the interval between the first palliative care consult (PCC1) and death, and explore the possible cause of suggestive short timeframe between PCC1 and death. Patients and Methods: This study included 210 cancer patients who had their PCC1 in KFMC within the period of March 2012 and March 2014. Demographic information, cancer diagnosis, date of cancer diagnosis, reason for referral, all symptoms reported in Palliative Care Unit, and date of death were gathered from the patients’ charts. The interval between the PCC1 and death were computed and analyzed. Results: Of the 210 patients, 121 (57.6%) were female, 127 (60.5%) were <60 years old, and 190 (90.5%) had nonhaematological tumours. The main reasons for referral were symptom control (62.4%), symptom control and end of life (EOL) care (12.4%), symptom control and transfer of care (11.4%), and EOL care (8.6%). The median interval between PCC1 and death, diagnosis to PCC1, and diagnosis to death intervals were 19, 212, and 360 days, respectively. Patients diagnosed with haematological tumours were referred relatively earlier to palliative care. The difference in the mean (haematology > non-haematology) for the interval between PCC1 and death was 146.2 days (P < 0.001). Conclusions: Late referrals to palliative care services KFMC is the strongest predictor of the short interval between PCC1 to death of advanced stage cancer patients. Identifying the potential cause of the late referrals can lead to developing optimal policies for the timely referral of cancer patients to palliative care upon diagnosis regardless of the stage of their disease. Education and advocacy are needed among the referring oncologists in the cancer center for earlier access to palliative care. Future studies are needed to establish the appropriate timing of the PCC1.
Use of Palliative Care Services in a Tertiary Cancer Center
The oncologist, 2015
Despite increasing prevalence of palliative care (PC) services in cancer centers, most referrals to the service occur exceedingly late in the illness trajectory. Over the years, we have made several attempts to promote earlier patient access to our PC program, such as changing the name of our service from PC to supportive care (SC). This study was conducted to determine the use of PC/SC service over the past 8 years. We reviewed billing data for all PC/SC encounters. We examined five metrics for use: inpatient consultations as a percentage of hospital admissions, ratio of inpatient consultations to average number of operational beds, time from hospital registration to outpatient consultation, time from advanced cancer diagnosis to consultation, and time from first outpatient consultation to death/last follow-up. Over the years, we found a consistent increase in patient referrals to the PC/SC program. In the inpatient setting, we found approximate doubling of the inpatient consultati...
Oncologist, 2021
Background. Evidence from randomized controlled trials has demonstrated benefits in quality of life outcomes from early palliative care concurrent with standard oncology care in patients with advanced cancer. We hypothesized that there would be earlier referral to outpatient palliative care at a comprehensive cancer center following this evidence. Materials and Methods. Administrative databases were reviewed for two cohorts of patients: the pre-evidence cohort was seen in outpatient palliative care between June and November 2006, and the post-evidence cohort was seen between June and November 2015. Timing of referral was categorized, according to time from referral to death, as early (>12 months), intermediate (>6 months to 12 months), and late (≤6 months from referral to death). Univariable and multivariable ordinal logistic regression analyses were used to determine demographic and medical factors associated with timing of referral. Results. Late referrals decreased from 68.8% pre-evidence to 44.8% post-evidence; early referrals increased from 13.4% to 31.1% (p < .0001). The median time from palliative care referral to death increased from 3.5 to 7.0 months (p < .0001); time from diagnosis to referral was also reduced (p < .05). On multivariable regression analysis, earlier referral to palliative care was associated with post-evidence group (p < .0001), adjusting for shorter time since diagnosis (p < .0001), referral for pain and symptom management (p = .002), and patient sex (p = .04). Late referrals were reduced to <50% in the breast, gynecological, genitourinary, lung, and gastrointestinal tumor sites. Conclusions. Following robust evidence from trials supporting early palliative care for patients with advanced cancer, patients were referred substantially earlier to outpatient palliative care. The Oncologist 2021;26:332-340 Implications for Practice: Following published evidence demonstrating the benefit of early referral to palliative care for patients with advanced cancer, there was a substantial increase in early referrals to outpatient palliative care at a comprehensive cancer center. The increase in early referrals occurred mainly in tumor sites that have been included in trials of early palliative care. These results indicate that oncologists' referral practices can change if positive consequences of earlier referral are demonstrated. Future research should focus on demonstrating benefits of early palliative care for tumor sites that have tended to be omitted from early palliative care trials.
Clinical and Economic Impact of Palliative Care Consultation
Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, 2008
Palliative care consultation is the most common model of hospital-based services in the United States, but few studies examine the impact of this model. In a prospective study, we describe the impact of palliative care consultation on symptoms, treatment, and hospital costs. Patients receiving interdisciplinary palliative care consultations from 2002 to 2004 were approached for enrollment; 304 of 395 (77%) patients participated. Measures included diagnosis, treatment decisions, and symptom scores. To test impact on costs, a one-year subset of cases with lengths of stay &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;4 days (n=104) was compared to all available controls (n=1,813) matched on the 3Mtrade mark All Patients Refined Diagnosis Related Group, Version 20, and mortality risk scores. Half of the patients were younger than 65 years, 28% were African American, and 61% had cancer. Median Palliative Performance score was 20 (range, 10-100). Recommendations were implemented in 88% of cases; new &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;quot;do not resuscitate/do not intubate&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;quot; orders were written for 34% of patients, new comfort care orders for 44%, and 27% were referred for hospice care. Symptom scores improved from Day 1 to Day 3, with greatest improvement in pain (2.6-1.4, P&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;0.001). Compared to matched controls without palliative care consultation, palliative care cases had lower cost per day ($897 vs. $1004, P=0.03). Per diem variable costs were 10.7% less for all palliative care cases and 20.5% less for those with &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;50% hospital days with palliative care consultation. Palliative care consultation is followed by decisions to forego costly treatment and improved symptom scores, and earlier palliative care intervention results in greater cost-savings.
Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, 1999
This study describes the characteristics of a representative sample of terminally ill cancer patients at admission to Italian palliative care programs, the rate and reasons for discontinuation of care, and survival after enrollment. All Italian palliative care units (PCUs) specifically committed to palliative care were asked to consecutively register all new patients ( n ϭ 3901) between January and June, 1995. Fifty-eight of the 62 PCUs contacted by the Steering Committee completed the study. A random sample of 589 evaluable patients was prospectively selected from the 2667 eligible patients. Patients were mostly referred by a general practitioner (31.2%) or a specialist (42.1%). Most patients (84.7%) were followed until death. Seventyseven discontinued care because of hospital admission (6.6%), change of residence (3.9%), refusal (1.7%), or improvement (0.8%). Median survival was 37.9 days; 14.3% of the patients died within 7 days, and 15.3% lived longer than 180 days. A statistically significant association between survival and gender, cancer type, setting of the first visit, and type of unit was observed. In Italy, as in other countries with different health systems, referral of cancer patients to palliative care tends to occur late in the course of the disease. This study suggests that the process of enrollment and the duration of patients' survival in palliative care, when studied in large unselected populations, can provide important information relevant to the care of terminally ill patients.
Journal of clinical oncology : official journal of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, 2015
Previous studies report that early palliative care is associated with clinical benefits, but there is limited evidence on economic impact. This article addresses the research question: Does timing of palliative care have an impact on its effect on cost? Using a prospective, observational design, clinical and cost data were collected for adult patients with an advanced cancer diagnosis admitted to five US hospitals from 2007 to 2011. The sample for economic evaluation was 969 patients; 256 were seen by a palliative care consultation team, and 713 received usual care only. Subsamples were created according to time to consult after admission. Propensity score weights were calculated, matching the treatment and comparison arms specific to each subsample on observed confounders. Generalized linear models with a γ distribution and a log link were applied to estimate the mean treatment effect on cost within subsamples. Earlier consultation is associated with a larger effect on total direct...
2020
Background In order to avoid unnecessary use of hospital services at the end-of-life, palliative care should be initiated early enough in order to have time to initiate and carry out advance care planning (ACP). This single center study assesses the impact of the PC decision and its timing on the use of hospital services at EOL and the place of death. Methods A randomly chosen cohort of 992 cancer patients treated in a tertiary hospital between Jan 2013 –Dec 2014, who were deceased by the end of 2014, were selected from the total number of 2737 identified from the hospital database. The PC decision (the decision to terminate life-prolonging anticancer treatments and focus on symptom centered palliative care) and use of PC unit services were studied in relation to emergency department (ED) visits, hospital inpatient days and place of death. Results The PC decision was defined for 82% of the patients and 37% visited a PC unit. The earlier the PC decision was made, the more often patie...
From Evidence to Practice: Early Integration of Palliative Care in a Comprehensive Cancer Center
Purpose The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) recommends that all patients with a diagnosis of advanced cancer be referred to a palliative care team within 8 weeks of diagnosis. The benefits of early integrated palliative care are well recognized, however, there is a lack of consensus to guide operational aspects of a palliative care service within a comprehensive cancer center. In this study, we explore current palliative care referral patterns at an academic cancer center and provide recommendations for operationalizing palliative care services as a program within comprehensive cancer centers in order to adequately meet the needs of patients with advanced cancer. Methods A retrospective chart review of patients with newly diagnosed metastatic cancer or advanced hematologic malignancy seen by the palliative care team at a comprehensive cancer center from January 1, 2021, to October 31, 2021 was conducted. IRB approval was obtained prior to the initiation of the chart rev...