• Alejandra Palma, Verónica Rojas, Fernando Ihl, Cristina Ávila, Francisca Plaza-Parrochia, Nivia Estuardo, and Domingo Castillo.
• Palliative Care Section, Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine. Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile. Electronic address: apalmabehnke@gmail.com.
• J Pain Symptom Manage. 2021 Nov 1; 62 (5): 101510191015-1019.

BackgroundThe severity of the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in limited provision of palliative care and hospital teams have had to rise to the challenge of how to deliver care safely to people with palliative needs. Telehealth interventions have been seen as a useful resource with potential to improve clinical effectiveness.ObjectiveTo describe the implementation of a spiritual and psychological palliative telehealth system during the pandemic.MethodsPilot study based on the implementation of a telehealth system designed to support hospitalized patients referred to a mobile palliative care team, through synchronic videoconferences, and including patients' relatives. The implementation included protocol development, physical infrastructure, and training. The intervention consisted of spiritual and psychological telehealth sessions performed remotely by the chaplain and psychologist of a palliative care team.ResultsDuring the study period 59 patients were recruited, median age of 70 years, 57.6% females. The primary diagnosis was severe COVID-19 (50.8%), advanced cancer (32.2%) and advanced chronic illness (16.9%). A total of 211 telehealth sessions were carried out, 82% psychological and 18% spiritual. The main criteria for psychological sessions were being related to seriously ill patients with withdrawal or withholding of life-support treatment (60.1%). The main criteria for spiritual sessions were being a patient with spiritual suffering or requesting spiritual assistance (73.6%). An electronic user satisfaction survey indicated high satisfaction rates.ConclusionThis report demonstrates that it is possible to provide spiritual and psychological palliative care to hospitalized patients and families during pandemic restrictions through interdisciplinary telehealth delivery.Copyright © 2021 American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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