Palliative & supportive care
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Palliat Support Care · Oct 2019
Improving the Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) process: A qualitative study of family caregiver perspectives.
The road to legalization of Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) across Canada has largely focused on legislative details such as eligibility and establishment of regulatory clinical practice standards. Details on how to implement high-quality, person-centered MAID programs at the institutional level are lacking. This study seeks to understand what improvement opportunities exist in the delivery of the MAID process from the family caregiver perspective. ⋯ To our knowledge, this is the first time that family caregivers' perspectives on the quality of the MAID process have been explored. Although practice standards have been made available to ensure all legislated components of the MAID process are completed, detailed guidance for how to best implement patient and family centered MAID programs at the institutional level remain limited. This study provides guidance for ways in which we can enhance the quality of MAID from the perspective of family caregivers.
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Palliat Support Care · Oct 2019
Electronic medical orders for life-sustaining treatment in New York State: Length of stay, direct costs in an ICU setting.
In the United States, approximately 20% patients die annually during a hospitalization with an intensive care unit (ICU) stay. Each year, critical care costs exceed $82 billion, accounting for 13% of all inpatient hospital costs. Treatment of sepsis is listed as the most expensive condition in US hospitals, costing more than $20 billion annually. Electronic Medical Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (eMOLST) is a standardized documentation process used in New York State to convey patients' wishes regarding cardiopulmonary resuscitation and other life-sustaining treatments. No study to date has looked at the effect of eMOLST as an advance care planning tool on ICU and hospital costs using estimates of direct costs. The objective of our study was to investigate whether signing of eMOLST results in any reduction in length of stay and direct costs for a community-based hospital in New York State. ⋯ Completing an eMOLST form did not have any effect on reducing total direct cost, ICU cost, total length of hospital stay, and total hours spent in the ICU.
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Palliat Support Care · Aug 2019
Validation of the Brief Edinburgh Depression Scale (BEDS) in a Mexican population with advanced cancer in a palliative care service.
Depression in palliative advanced cancer patients is common, but often goes unrecognized. One of the first steps toward improving detection is the development of tools that are valid in the specific language and setting in which they are to be used. The Brief Edinburgh Depression Scale (BEDS) is a sensitive case-finding tool for depression in advanced cancer patients that was developed in the United Kingdom. There are no validated instruments to identify depression in Mexican palliative patients. Our aim was to validate the Spanish-language version of the BEDS in Mexican population with advanced cancer. ⋯ Major depressive disorder is frequent in Mexican palliative patients. The Spanish-language Mexican version of the BEDS is the first valid case-finding tool in advanced cancer patients in this setting.
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Palliat Support Care · Aug 2019
Timing of palliative care access and outcomes of advanced cancer patients referred to an inpatient palliative care consultation team in Brazil.
Little is known about the outcomes of cancer patients referred to palliative care (PC) teams in developing countries. Our aim was to examine the timing of PC access and outcomes of patients with advanced cancer referred to an inpatient PC consultation team in Brazil. ⋯ Although PC referrals occurred exceedingly late during the cancer disease trajectory, positive changes were observed in medication profiles, clinical interventions use, and end-of-life preferences of patients with advanced cancer referred to a specialized inpatient PC consultation team in Brazil. Further efforts are needed to improve early palliative cancer care in developing countries.