Journal of palliative medicine
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Background: Understanding the factors that affect the congruence between preferred and actual place of death may help providers offer clients customized end-of-life care settings. Little is known about this congruence for cancer patients in receipt of home-based palliative care. Objectives: This study aims to determine the congruence between preferred and actual place of death among cancer patients in home-based palliative care programs. ⋯ The intensity of home-based nursing visits and hours of care from personal support workers (PSWs) increased the likelihood of achieving death in a preferred setting. Conclusions: The provision of care by home-based nurse visits and PSWs contributed to achieving a greater congruence between preferred and actual place of death. This finding highlights the importance of formal care providers in signaling and executing the preferences of clients in receipt of home-based palliative care.
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Background: As the death rate numbers in the United States related to COVID-19 are in the tens of thousands, clinicians are increasingly tasked with having serious illness conversations. However, in the setting of infection control policies, visitor restrictions, social distancing, and a lack of personal protective equipment, many of these important conversations are occurring by virtual visits. Objective: From our experience with a multisite study exploring the effectiveness of virtual palliative care, we have identified key elements of webside manner that are helpful when conducting serious illness conversations by virtual visit. Results: The key elements and components of webside manner skills are proper set up, acquainting the participant, maintaining conversation rhythm, responding to emotion, and closing the visit. Other considerations that may require conversion to phone visits include persistent technical difficulties, lack of prerequisite technology to conduct virtual visits, patients who are too ill to participate, or who find virtual visits too technically challenging. Conclusions: Similar to bedside manner, possessing nuanced verbal and nonverbal webside manner skills is essential to conducting serious illness conversations during virtual visits.
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Background and Purpose: Patients with severe, progressive multiple sclerosis (MS) have complex physical and psychosocial needs, typically over several years. Few treatment options are available to prevent or delay further clinical worsening in this population. The objective was to develop an evidence-based clinical practice guideline for the palliative care of patients with severe, progressive MS. ⋯ Conclusions: The provision of home-based palliative care (either general or specialist) is recommended with weak strength for patients with severe, progressive MS. Further research on the integration of palliative care and MS care is needed. Areas that currently lack evidence of efficacy in this population include advance care planning, the management of symptoms such as fatigue and mood problems, and interventions for caregivers and HPs.
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Background: Ohana Health Plan, Inc., (OHP) is one of the first managed care organizations offering supportive care services targeted to superutilizers. Bristol Hospice Hawaii, LLC, partnered with OHP to provide interdisciplinary supportive care services to home-bound OHP members. Objectives: The purpose of this study was to measure symptom relief, satisfaction, resource utilization, and cost savings associated with supportive care. ⋯ Discussions and documentation of end-of-life wishes increased from 23% to 85%. Conclusion: Supportive care is highly effective in reducing costs associated with superutilizers. Our experience demonstrates the effectiveness of supportive care approaches in this population through improved care and lower health care costs overall.
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Background: Understanding patients' goals and values is important to ensure goal-concordant care; however, such discussions can be challenging. Little is known about the impact of having these discussions on hospitalists. Objective: To assess the impact on hospitalists of a system that reminds them to have serious illness conversations with their patients identified with potential unmet palliative needs. ⋯ The intervention hospitalists, over time, reported a slight reduction in the sense of meaning they achieved from the conversations. Conclusion: Routinely informing hospitalists when their patients were identified as being at increased risk for unmet palliative needs did not increase the sense of meaning these providers achieved. It is likely the pretrial training accounted for many of the positive outcomes in communication skills observed in both arms of the trial.