Proactive palliative care for patients with COPD (PROLONG): a pragmatic cluster controlled trial.

Background And Aim: Patients with advanced chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) have poor quality of life. The aim of this study was to assess the effects of proactive palliative care on the well-being of these patients.

Trial Registration: This trial is registered with the Netherlands Trial Register, NTR4037.

Development of the ProPal-COPD tool to identify patients with COPD for proactive palliative care.

Background: Our objective was to develop a tool to identify patients with COPD for proactive palliative care. Since palliative care needs increase during the disease course of COPD, the prediction of mortality within 1 year, measured during hospitalizations for acute exacerbation COPD (AECOPD), was used as a proxy for the need of proactive palliative care.

Patients And Methods: Patients were recruited from three general hospitals in the Netherlands in 2014.

The view of pulmonologists on palliative care for patients with COPD: a survey study.

Introduction: Early palliative care is not a common practice for patients with COPD. Important barriers are the identification of patients for palliative care and the organization of such care in this patient group.

Objective: Pulmonologists have a central role in providing good quality palliative care for patients with COPD.

Consistency of medical record reporting of a set of indicators for proactive palliative care in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

To identify patients hospitalized for an acute exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) who have a poor prognosis and might benefit from proactive palliative care, a set of indicators had been developed from the literature. A patient is considered eligible for proactive palliative care when meeting ≥2 criteria of the proposed set of 11 indicators. In order to develop a doctor-friendly and patient-convenient tool, our primary objective was to examine whether these indicators are documented consistently in the medical records.

PROLONG: a cluster controlled trial to examine identification of patients with COPD with poor prognosis and implementation of proactive palliative care.

Background: Proactive palliative care is not yet common practice for patients with COPD. Important barriers are the identification of patients with a poor prognosis and the organization of proactive palliative care dedicated to the COPD patient. Recently a set of indicators has been developed to identify those patients with COPD hospitalized for an acute exacerbation who are at risk for post-discharge mortality.