Journal of palliative medicine
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This article presents a rapid review of the published literature and available resources for educating Canadian physicians to provide palliative and end-of-life care. Several key messages emerge from the review. First, there are many palliative care educational resources already available for Canadian physicians. ⋯ Sixth, undergraduate and postgraduate medical training is shifting from a time-based training paradigm to competency-based training and evaluation. Seventh, virtually every physician in Canada should be able to provide basic palliative care; physicians in specialized areas of practice should receive palliative care education that is tailored to their area, rather than generic educational interventions. For each key message, one or more implications are provided, which can serve as recommendations for a framework to improve palliative care as a whole in Canada.
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Multicenter Study
Pharmacovigilance in Hospice/Palliative Care: Net Effect of Haloperidol for Nausea or Vomiting.
Haloperidol is widely prescribed as an antiemetic in patients receiving palliative care, but there is limited evidence to support and refine its use. ⋯ Haloperidol as an antiemetic provided rapid net clinical benefit with low-grade, short-term harms.
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Inpatient Palliative Care (PC) consultations help develop a patient-centered and quality-of-life-focused plan of care for patients with serious illness. Discharge summaries (DSs) are an essential tool to maintain continuity of these care plans across multiple locations and providers. ⋯ More than one in five DSs lacked any code words of the completed PC consultation and more than one in three DSs lacked mention of PC. As DSs are the main source of provider communication, it is critical they reflect the key discussion points from the PC consultation, which will improve the transition of care and provider communication.
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Our aim was to obtain initial estimates of the effect of a palliative care and medical oncology co-rounding model on hospital length of stay, proportion of patients reviewed by specialist palliative care (SPC), and proportion of patients who were readmitted within 7 and 30 days of hospital discharge. ⋯ In our target population, the co-rounding model was associated with a shorter hospital length of stay.