Articles: palliative-care.
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Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) first emerged in China in December 2019 and was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization on March 11, 2020. Clinicians around the world looked to cities that first experienced major surges to inform their preparations to prevent and manage the impact the pandemic would bring to their patients and health care systems. Although this information provided insight into how COVID-19 could affect the Canadian palliative care system, it remained unclear what to expect. ⋯ Despite warnings of increased clinical loads, as well as widespread shortages of staff, personal protection equipment, medications, and inpatient beds, the calls to action by international colleagues to support the palliative care needs of patients with COVID-19 were not realized in Toronto. This article explores the effects of the pandemic on Toronto's palliative care planning and reports of clinical load and capacity, beds, staffing and redeployment, and medication and PPE shortages. The Toronto palliative care experience illustrates the international need for strategies to ensure the integration of palliative care into COVID-19 management, and to optimize the use of palliative care systems during the pandemic.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Sep 2021
Healthcare professionals' work-related stress in palliative care: a cross-sectional survey.
Providing palliative care can lead to work-related stress and ultimately to burnout. The need for palliative care will further increase due to population aging and people living longer with life-threatening diseases. Therefore, a healthy palliative care workforce is vital. ⋯ Symptoms of burnout are quite prevalent among healthcare professionals providing palliative care in the Netherlands. Healthcare professionals have a need for team and organisation approaches to maintain a healthy work-life balance.
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Palliative medicine · Sep 2021
Examining the course of transitions from hospital to home-based palliative care: A mixed methods study.
Hospital-to-home transitions in palliative care are fraught with challenges. To assess transitions researchers have used patient reported outcome measures and qualitative data to give unique insights into a phenomenon. Few measures examine care setting transitions in palliative care, yet domains identified in other populations are likely relevant for patients receiving palliative care. ⋯ We identified aspects of these three domains that may be targeted to improve transitions through intervention development. Identified discrepancies between the data types should be considered for future research exploration.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Sep 2021
Compassion inequities and opioid use disorder: A matched case-control analysis examining inpatient management of cancer-related pain for patients with opioid use disorder.
The opioid epidemic spurred guidelines intended to reduce inappropriate prescribing. Although acute cancer-related pain was excluded from these recommendations, studies demonstrate reduced opioid prescribing for patients hospitalized with advanced cancer. ⋯ Our results suggest that patients with OUD receive lower quality inpatient management of cancer-related pain. Provider education and early involvement of pain specialists are crucial in delivering equitable and compassionate end-of-life care for patients with OUD.
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Internal medicine journal · Sep 2021
Observational StudyImpacts of multidisciplinary meeting case discussion on palliative care referral and end-of-life care in lung cancer: A retrospective observational study.
Multidisciplinary meeting (MDM) discussion and early palliative care are recommended in lung cancer management. The literature is unclear whether MDM discussion leads to early palliative care and improved end-of-life care. ⋯ Discussion at lung MDM did not increase palliative care referral, but did reduce ICU admission among metastatic patients at the end of life. Longer palliative care referral-to-death interval was associated with reduced aggressive end-of-life care. Further research is needed in these areas.