• Rachel Everitt, Aaron K Wong, Olivia Wawryk, Brian Le, Jaclyn Yoong, Maria Pisasale, Ruwani Mendis, and Jennifer Philip.
• Parkville integrated Palliative Care Service, The Royal Melbourne Hospital, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
• Intern Med J. 2022 Dec 1; 52 (12): 206820752068-2075.

BackgroundCOVID-19 has led to challenges in providing effective and timely communication in healthcare. Services have been required to adapt and evolve as successful communication remains core to high-quality patient-centred care.AimTo describe the communication between admitted patients, their families and clinicians (medical, nursing, allied health) during end-of-life care.MethodsThis retrospective review included all patients (n = 230) who died directly due to COVID-19 at five Melbourne hospitals between 1 January and 31 December 2020. Contacts and modality used (face to face, video, telephone) during the 8 days prior to death were recorded.ResultsPatients were predominantly elderly (median age 86 years) and from residential aged care facilities (62%; n = 141). Communication frequency increased the closer the patient was to death, where on day of death, contact between clinicians and patients was 93% (n = 213) clinicians and families 97% (n = 222) and between patients and families 50% (n = 115). Most contact between patients and families was facilitated by a clinician (91.3% (n = 105) day of death) with the most commonly used mode being video call (n = 30 day of death).ConclusionThis study is one of the first and largest Australian reports on how communication occurs at the end of life for patients dying of COVID-19. Contact rates were relatively low between patients and families, compared with other cohorts dying from non-COVID-19 related causes. The impact of this difference on bereavement outcomes requires surveillance and attention.© 2022 Royal Australasian College of Physicians.

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