Running head: PATIENT AND FAMILY QUALITY END-OF-LIFE CARE IN THE ICU 1 Patient and Family Quality End-of-Life Care in the Intensive Care Setting: Alignment or Opposing Views (original) (raw)
Understanding patients' and family members' perspectives on the important elements of end-of-life care and understanding what satisfies them will enable the focus of quality end-of-life care (EOLC) as it pertains to critical care in Alberta. To incorporate a patient and family centered care (PFCC) approach to care in the intensive care setting there is a need to partner and involve patients and families to assess how we can improve EOLC to meet their needs. EOLC in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) has been studied in the literature, but limited publications exist from the patient and family perspective of quality EOLC. A study was used that developed seven EOLC domains, quality indicators and the associated organizational behaviours. These were developed by a clinical task force of experts and ICU clinicians in the field of critical care medicine. The study was not inclusive of patient and family member's participating and providing input into the important domains they would consider essential to quality EOLC. In order for health care to improve the system and provide patient and family centered care, their voice needs to be integral to all aspects of the health care system. This led to the purpose of this paper to be inclusive of the current literature published since 2003 from the patient and family perspective. Therefore, four research questions were asked including:
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