Expanding the Palliative Care Workforce during the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Evaluation of Core Palliative Care Skills in Health Social Workers.

Meeting the needs of seriously ill SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) patients requires novel models of deploying health social workers (SWs) to expand the palliative care workforce. To inform such expansion, understanding the current state of health SWs' core palliative care skills is necessary. Following minimal training, health SWs in one New York City hospital were surveyed about their frequency, competence, and confidence in using core palliative care skills.

Using Admission Karnofsky Performance Status as a Guide for Palliative Care Discharge Needs.

To examine the relationship between admission Karnofsky Performance Status (KPS) and discharge disposition. Little is known about the relationship between functional status before hospitalization and discharge disposition. In a retrospective cohort study of patients seen by Mount Sinai Hospital Medicine Primary Palliative Care Program (HPPC), we used demographic and clinical data to compare discharge disposition by patients' functional status before admission into the hospital.

A Social Worker-Led Primary Palliative Care Model for Hospitalized Patients Admitted to the Hospital Medicine Service.

To increase earlier access to palliative care, and in turn increase documented goals of care and appropriate hospice referrals for seriously ill patients admitted to hospital medicine. Due to the growing number of patients with serious illness and the specialty palliative care workforce shortage, innovative primary palliative care models are essential to meet this population's needs. Patients with serious illness admitted to hospital medicine at a quaternary urban academic medical center in New York City and received an embedded palliative care social worker consultation in 2017.