Improving patient outcomes through palliative care integration in other specialised health services: what we have learned so far and how can we improve?

Abstract

Palliative care has been increasingly shown to improve patient outcomes, in particular symptom management, quality of life and patient and family satisfaction. This has been shown within the care of people with cancer, neurological disease and heart failure but the methods by which palliative care is introduced earlier in the diagnosis is still complex. There are different models of increasing integration- care solely by the specialist, referral to other professionals or members of the team as necessary or an integrated model where palliative care interventions occur early in the disease progression. The evidence for the effectiveness of early involvement is being developed. The challenge for the future is increasing the awareness of professionals, patients and families that palliative care may be helpful and may improve the quality of life, and maybe the survival, of patients. The complex team interactions need to be acknowledged and all professionals involved to be focussed on improving the outcome for the patient and family.

The Role of Palliative Care in Chronic Progressive Neurological Diseases—A Survey Amongst Neurologists in the Netherlands

“…The term “palliative care” is not only confusing for neurologists, but also for patients who might not be interested in “palliative care,” but willing to attend a team-based clinic providing intensive symptom management and psychosocial support (15). Therefore, some clinicians suggest to talk about “supportive care” (65). In our survey 7% of the consultants in neurology associated palliative care with supportive care.…”

Psykiatri och dödshjälp

“…Palliativ medisin er effektiv når det gjelder symptomlindring, livskvalitet og pasient-og pårørendetilfredshet (Oliver, 2018;Holmenlund, 2017;Gaertner et al, 2017;Davis & Temel, 2015). Tidlig integrering av palliasjon i pasientforløp ved uhelbredelig og dødelig sykdom ser ut til å øke kvaliteten ytterligere (NOU 2017:16).…”

Determining the prevalence of palliative needs and exploring screening accuracy of depression and anxiety items of the integrated palliative care outcome scale – a multi-centre study

“…Palliative care is a holistic approach of care, which can be integrated early in the disease trajectory, alongside active, curative treatment, [1] and aims to alleviate physical and non-physical symptoms of patients and their families [2][3][4][5][6][7]. Though physical symptoms may be more easily identified by healthcare professionals, patients and carers, non-physical symptoms can equally disrupt the patient and family's quality of life and cause suffering [8].…”