Survival, mortality, and location of death for patients seen by a hospital-based palliative care team.

BACKGROUND: Little is known about patient outcomes after discharge planning by inpatient palliative care teams. A major difficulty is that successful discharge planning often effectively limits or ends the team's relationship with the patient and family. The goal of this study was to gather a clearer picture of what happened to our palliative care consult patients after discharge. METHODS: This was a longitudinal survey of all patients seen over a one year period by the inpatient palliative care team at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU). Data were recorded by team members at the time of consultation and supplemented by data from administrative databases and death certificates. RESULTS: The team provided consults to 292 unique patients: 60% were younger than age 65, 39% were female, and 16% were members of an ethnic or racial minority. Almost three quarters of patients carried a non-cancer diagnosis. Of the 292 patients, 37% died in hospital and 63% were discharged alive, either to home (54%), nursing facilities (20%), or inpatient hospice (26%). Of the 183 patients discharged alive, 38% died within 2 weeks, 32% died between 2 weeks and 6 months, 25% were alive at 6 months, and 4% were unknown. Of note, only 10% of patients seen by the consult service were readmitted to OSHU within 30 days, and only 5% of those discharged alive from OHSU ultimately died in an acute care hospital. DISCUSSION: We characterized patient outcomes following inpatient palliative care consultation: where patients are discharged, how long they live, and where they die. Two thirds of patients were able to be discharged, even when death occurred within two weeks. The low rates of readmission and death in an acute care hospital support that the decision to discharge the patients was reasonable and the discharge plan was adequate. Hospital based palliative care teams can play an important and unique role in discharge planning--allowing even patients very near death to leave the hospital if they wish.

High-dose neuroleptics and neuroleptic rotation for agitated delirium near the end of life.

REASON FOR THE STUDY: Agitated delirium presents unique challenges for hospice and palliative care clinicians. Haloperidol, the recommended neuroleptic, may be ineffective at low dose, or poorly tolerated at higher doses. MAIN FINDINGS: This article reports on two patients with refractory agitated delirium. Both developed extrapyramidal symptoms from haloperidol and required rotation to an alternate neuroleptic. Patient #1 received 2000 mg/day oral chlorpromazine. Patient #2 received greater than 200 mg/day sublingual olanzapine. Control of agitation was achieved, though the doses were substantially higher than has previously reported in the literature. Each patient experienced considerable sedation, though this was an acceptable side effect for the family. Each patient was transferred from the acute care hospital to a location of family preference. There they died within a week of transfer. CONCLUSIONS: Agitated delirium is a palliative care emergency. High doses of neuroleptic medications, with rotation to an alternate neuroleptic when side effects occur with standard haloperidol, may effectively palliate agitated delirium. This remedy can provide the patient with a peaceful dying in a place of their choosing.

Inadvertent ophthalmic administration of atropine drops in a hospice patient.

This case report describes a patient who had atropine ophthalmic drops prescribed and dispensed by hospice to be administered sublingually as needed for control of secretions at the end of life. However, even as she stabilized and discharged from hospice, these remained on her medication list. At a subsequent hospitalization, this order was misinterpreted and the drops were ordered to be administered in both the eyes 3 times a day while in the hospital and were included in her discharge medication list. The patient experienced severe blurring of vision until the error was corrected. This case highlights the potential risks of the common practice in hospice of using alternate routes of administration for medications designed for another purpose.

Incorporating routine survival prediction in a U.S. hospital-based palliative care service.

BACKGROUND: Prognostication is a core component of palliative care consultation. We sought to incorporate predicted survival into the routine practice of our hospital-based palliative care team. METHODS: The predicted survival was determined by the physician and/or nurse at the time of initial palliative care consultation using categories that parallel the rough time frames often shared with patients and used in planning care: (1) ≤3 days, (2) 4 days to 1 month, (3) >1 month to 6 months, (4) >6 months. One year later, survival status at 6 months was determined using death certificates, the Social Security online database, and other methods. RESULTS: Over 1 year, complete data were obtained for 429 of 450 (95.3%) consecutive new patient consults. Patients' mean and median age was 63, 48.5% had cancer, 83% were Caucasian, and 50% were female. For the 283 patients who were discharged alive, median survival was 18 days and 58 patients were still alive after 6 months. Fifty-eight percent of patients were assigned to the correct survival category, whereas 27% of prognoses were too optimistic and 16% were too pessimistic. In logistic regression analysis, predicted survivals of ≤3 days were much more likely to be accurate than longer predictions. DISCUSSION: The team recorded a predicted survival in 95% of new patient consults. Fifty-eight percent accuracy is in line with prior literature. Routinely incorporating survival prediction into palliative care consultation raised a number of questions. What decisions were made based on the 42% incorrect prognoses? Did these decisions negatively affect care? Survival prediction accuracy has potential as a quality measure for hospital-based palliative care programs, however to be truly useful it needs to be shown to be "improveable" and the downstream effects of predictions need to be better understood.

Responding to requests for physician-assisted suicide: "These are uncharted waters for both of us...".

Studies of dying patients have shown that about half would like the option of physician-assisted suicide (PAS) to be available for possible future use. Those percentages decrease significantly with each step patients take toward action. Studies show that although about 10% of patients seriously consider PAS, only 1% of dying patients specifically request it, and 1 in 10 of those patients actually receive and take a lethal prescription. However, most patients' desires for PAS diminish as their underlying concerns are identified and addressed directly. To help identify concerns motivating a patient's request for PAS, physicians should talk with patients about their expectations and fears, options for end-of-life care, goals, family concerns and burdens, suffering or physical symptoms, sense of meaning and quality of life, and symptoms of depression. A patient with advanced amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) who requested PAS illustrates how a hasty response may adversely affect patient care and the health care team. Although physicians should remain mindful of their personal, moral, and legal concerns, these concerns should not override their willingness to explore what motivates a patient to make this request. When this approach is taken, suffering can be optimally alleviated and, in almost all cases, the patient's wishes can be met without PAS.