Five-Year Experience of an Inpatient Palliative Care Unit at an Academic Referral Center.
Am J Hosp Palliat Care
; 35(8): 1057-1062, 2018 Aug.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-29325441
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
Palliative care units (PCUs) staffed by specialty-trained physicians and nurses have been established in a number of medical centers. The purpose of this study is to review the 5-year experience of a PCU at a large, urban academic referral center.METHODS:
We retrospectively reviewed a prospectively collected database of all admissions to the PCU at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in the first 5 years of its existence, from 2012 through 2017.RESULTS:
Over these 5 years, there were 3321 admissions to the PCU. No single underlying disease process accounted for the majority of the patients, but the largest single category of patients were those with malignancy, who accounted for 38% of admissions. Transfers from the intensive care unit accounted for 50% of admissions, with 43% of admissions from a hospital floor and 7% coming from the emergency department or a clinic. Median length of stay in the PCU was 3 days. In hospital deaths occurred for 50% of admitted patients, while 38% of patients were discharged from the PCU to hospice.CONCLUSION:
These data show that a successful PCU is enabled by buy in from a wide variety of referring specialists and by a multidisciplinary palliative care team focused on care of the actively dying patient as well as pain and symptom management, advance care planning, and hospice referral since a large proportion of referred patients do not die in house.Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Palliative Care
/
Terminal Care
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Academic Medical Centers
/
Inpatients
Type of study:
Observational_studies
Limits:
Adult
/
Aged
/
Aged80
/
Female
/
Humans
/
Male
/
Middle aged
Language:
En
Journal:
Am J Hosp Palliat Care
Journal subject:
ENFERMAGEM
Year:
2018
Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
United States