BMJ supportive & palliative care
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BMJ Support Palliat Care · Dec 2013
Use of a structured palliative care summary in patients with established cancer is associated with reduced hospital admissions by out-of-hours general practitioners in Grampian.
Palliative care summaries are used by general practices to provide structured anticipatory care information to those providing care during the out-of-hours period. We hypothesised that the availability of a palliative care summary for individuals with established cancer would influence emergency hospital admission during the out-of-hours period. ⋯ Availability of a structured palliative care plan can aid decision making in the out-of-hours period and prevent unplanned hospital admissions.
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BMJ Support Palliat Care · Dec 2013
Observational StudyCommunity pharmacists: a forgotten resource for palliative care.
Timely access to medicines within the community is important for palliative patients where their preferred place of care is the home environment. The objective of this observational study is to establish baseline data to quantify the issue of poor access to medicines for symptom control in the last few days of life. The list of 13 medicines was generated from medicine use within a metropolitan palliative care unit. ⋯ Just over 1 in 5 pharmacies reported learning about the palliative status of a patient through another health practitioner. Community pharmacies remain an underused resource to support timely access to medicines for community-based palliative patients. Palliative care services and government agencies can develop new strategies for better access to medicines that will benefit community patients and their carers.
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BMJ Support Palliat Care · Dec 2013
Information transfer to out-of-hours co-operatives: a survey of general practitioners' views in relation to palliative patients.
In Ireland, weekend and night medical cover for community based patients is largely provided by general practice co-operatives. Doctors working in this service do not have direct access to patients' medical records which challenges continuity of care. ⋯ A structured format for information transfer regarding end-of-life care is deemed important by GPs when working on-call at night and weekends. Diagnosis, patient preference and management plans are valued.