The American journal of hospice & palliative care
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Am J Hosp Palliat Care · Mar 2021
Comparison of Patient Self-Reported Quality of Life and Health Care Professional-Assessed Symptoms in Terminally ill Patients With Cancer.
Few studies evaluated whether health care professionals accurately assess several symptoms for patients with cancer in palliative care units. We determined the agreement level for several symptoms related to quality of life (QOL) between patient-reported QOL assessment and health care professional-assessed symptoms based on the Support Team Assessment Schedule (STAS). ⋯ We expect patient-reported outcomes including QLQ-C15-PAL to be added to health care professionals' assessment of serious symptoms such as fatigue in terminally ill patients with cancer.
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Am J Hosp Palliat Care · Mar 2021
Urgent Creation of a Palliative Care Team in a Small Hospital During the COVID Crisis.
The COVID-19 pandemic created a global health emergency that has changed the practice of medicine and has shown the need for palliative care as an essential element of hospital care. In our small South Florida hospital, a palliative care service was created to support the frontline caregivers. Thanks to the hospital support, our team was formed rapidly. ⋯ We were able to support patients and their families facilitating communication as visitation was not allowed. We also addressed goals of care, providing comfort care transition when appropriate, and facilitating allocation of scarce resources to patients who were most likely to benefit from them. With this article we describe a simplified framework to replicate the creation of a Palliative Care Team for other hospitals that are experiencing this need.