Clinical significance of palliative care assessment in patients referred for urgent intensive care unit admission: A cohort study.

Purpose: To evaluate clinical characteristics of patients with palliative care (PC) and urgent intensive care unit (ICU) referrals in the same hospital admission.

Methods: All urgent ICU referrals at an academic, tertiary hospital, and the co-occurrence and timing of PC assessment were retrieved from a prospectively collected database.

Results: From May 2014 to May 2015, 2476 patients were analyzed and 179 (7%) had co-occurrence of PC assessment and urgent ICU referral in the same hospital admission.