• Akihiro Sakashita, Megumi Kishino, Yoko Nakazawa, Nobuyuki Yotani, Takashi Yamaguchi, and Yoshiyuki Kizawa.
• Department of Palliative Medicine, Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine, Kobe, Hyogo, Japan meidai@med.kobe-u.ac.jp.
• Am J Hosp Palliat Care. 2016 Jul 1; 33 (6): 520-6.

ObjectiveTo clarify how highly active hospital palliative care teams can provide efficient and effective care regardless of the lack of full-time palliative care physicians.MethodsSemistructured focus group interviews were conducted, and content analysis was performed.ResultsA total of 7 physicians and 6 nurses participated. We extracted 209 codes from the transcripts and organized them into 3 themes and 21 categories, which were classified as follows: (1) tips for managing palliative care teams efficiently and effectively (7 categories); (2) ways of acquiring specialist palliative care expertise (9 categories); and (3) ways of treating symptoms that are difficult to alleviate (5 categories).ConclusionsThe findings of this study can be used as a nautical chart of hospital-based palliative care team (HPCT) without full-time PC physician. Full-time nurses who have high management and coordination abilities play a central role in resource-limited HPCTs.© The Author(s) 2015.

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