Journal of palliative medicine
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Comparative Study
Palliative Care Office Hours for Patients with Hematologic Malignancies: an Innovative Model for Symptom Management and Education.
Palliative care programs are experiencing rapid growth, with demand for consults surpassing staffing. Innovative models are needed to equip nonpalliative care providers to manage basic palliative care issues. ⋯ Office hours are an efficient way to address palliative care needs when demand for palliative care consults exceeds capacity. Office hours may serve an educational function as well, enabling primary teams to manage basic palliative care issues with increasing independence over time.
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More children are living with serious illness. However, survival and complexity of illnesses have not been described. ⋯ Results provide important information on the complexity of disease processes for children referred to palliative care, types of illnesses referred, survival, and pain levels. Results reflect earlier referral to palliative care for most children and highlight the medical complexity especially for children with congenital and genetic diagnoses.
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Palliative care for advanced heart failure (HF) is generally recommended. However, few reports have focused on the particulars of treatment, or the clinical course of HF on a specific treatment regimen. ⋯ With this treatment protocol, there were few HF admissions and patients were able to die at home. It can be used as a guide to therapy, or as an approach that can be tested with additional study.