Impact of Palliative Care Screening and Consultation in the ICU: A Multihospital Quality Improvement Project.

Context: There are few multicenter studies that examine the impact of systematic screening for palliative care and specialty consultation in the intensive care unit (ICU).

Objective: To determine the outcomes of receiving palliative care consultation (PCC) for patients who screened positive on palliative care referral criteria.

Methods: In a prospective quality assurance intervention with a retrospective analysis, the covariate balancing propensity score method was used to estimate the conditional probability of receiving a PCC and to balance important covariates.

Results of a Hospital-Based Palliative Care Intervention for Patients With an Acute Exacerbation of Chronic Heart Failure.

Background: Palliative interventions are an important part of advanced heart failure (HF) care. However, these interventions are historically underutilized, particularly by African Americans.

Methods And Results: We performed a prospective randomized intervention trial in patients with advanced HF who were hospitalized for acute decompensation at 3 urban hospitals, comparing the effect of palliative care consultation (PCC) with that of usual care.

Evaluation of screening criteria for palliative care consultation in the MICU: a multihospital analysis.

Background: There are currently no comprehensive studies in critical care settings that have set out to examine the association of palliative care screening criteria with multiple, adverse patient outcomes.

Methods: A 7-item palliative care screen was developed from consensus reports. Medical intensive care unit (MICU) nurses at four hospitals screened patients upon admission during a 16-week period.

Family-witnessed resuscitation: bereavement outcomes in an urban environment.

Background: After 20 years of debate regarding the appropriateness of family-witnessed resuscitations (FWR), little substantive data exist to suggest a benefit or harm to the family member.

Objective: To compare bereavement-related depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms among cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) patients' family members who remain in the waiting room of an urban emergency department (ED) with those who are invited to witness CPR.

Methods: A prospective comparison study was conducted at two large, urban, Midwestern teaching hospitals.