• deLima Thomas Jane J Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA; Department of Psychosocial Oncology and Palliative Care, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, Ma, Richard E Leiter, Janet L Abrahm, Jaclyn C Shameklis, Stephanie B Kiser, Samantha L Gelfand, Kate R Sciacca, Barbara Reville, Callie A Siegert, Haipeng Zhang, Lucinda Lai, Rintaro Sato, Lorie N Smith, Mihir M Kamdar, Lauren Greco, Kathleen A Lee, James A Tulsky, and Andrew J Lawton.
• Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA; Department of Psychosocial Oncology and Palliative Care, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA; Division of Palliative Medicine, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Electronic address: jane_thomas@dfci.harvard.edu.
• J Pain Symptom Manage. 2020 Aug 1; 60 (2): e22-e25.

AbstractThe Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has led to high numbers of critically ill and dying patients in need of expert management of dyspnea, delirium, and serious illness communication. The rapid spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome-Coronavirus-2 creates surges of infected patients requiring hospitalization and puts palliative care programs at risk of being overwhelmed by patients, families, and clinicians seeking help. In response to this unprecedented need for palliative care, our program sought to create a collection of palliative care resources for nonpalliative care clinicians. A workgroup of interdisciplinary palliative care clinicians developed the Palliative Care Toolkit, consisting of a detailed chapter in a COVID-19 online resource, a mobile and desktop Web application, one-page guides, pocket cards, and communication skills training videos. The suite of resources provides expert and evidence-based guidance on symptom management including dyspnea, pain, and delirium, as well as on serious illness communication, including conversations about goals of care, code status, and end of life. We also created a nurse resource hotline staffed by palliative care nurse practitioners and virtual office hours staffed by a palliative care attending physician. Since its development, the Toolkit has helped us disseminate best practices to nonpalliative care clinicians delivering primary palliative care, allowing our team to focus on the highest-need consults and increasing acceptance of palliative care across hospital settings.Copyright © 2020 American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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