Background: Palliative care improves care and reduces costs for hospitalized patients with life-limiting illnesses. There have been no multicenter randomized trials examining impact on patient satisfaction, clinical outcomes, and subsequent health care costs.
Objective: Measure the impact of an interdisciplinary palliative care service (IPCS) on patient satisfaction, clinical outcomes, and cost of care for 6 months posthospital discharge.
Methods: Multicenter, randomized, controlled trial. IPCS provided consultative, interdisciplinary, palliative care to intervention patients. Controls received usual hospital care (UC).
Setting And Sample: Five hundred seventeen patients with life-limiting illnesses from a hospital in Denver, Portland, and San Francisco enrolled June 2002 to December 2003.
Measures: Modified City of Hope Patient Questionnaire, total health care costs, hospice utilization, and survival.
Results: IPCS reported higher scores for the Care Experience scale (IPCS: 6.9 versus UC: 6.6, p = 0.04) and for the Doctors, Nurses/Other Care Providers Communication scale (IPCS: 8.3 versus UC: 7.5, p = 0.0004). IPCS patients had fewer intensive care admissions (ICU) on hospital readmission (12 versus 21, p = 0.04), and lower 6-month net cost savings of $4,855 per patient (p = 0.001). IPCS had longer median hospice stays (24 days versus 12 days, p = 0.04). There were no differences in survival or symptom control.
Conclusions: IPCS patients reported greater satisfaction with their care experience and providers' communication, had fewer ICU admissions on readmission, and lower total health care costs following hospital discharge.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1089/jpm.2007.0055 | DOI Listing |
World J Surg Oncol
January 2025
Department of Oesophago-Gastric & Bariatric Surgery, Salford Care Organisation, Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust, Salford Royal Hospital, Manchester, UK.
Background: The delivery of cancer services changed significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study aimed to describe changes in presentations, assess the change in recommendations by the MDT during the pandemic, and describe the subsequent long-term impact of these changes on survival rates in patients with EG cancer.
Methods: A retrospective cohort study was designed comparing three patient groups of those referred to EG MDT in the same 6-month period pre-pandemic (PP;2019) during the initial phase of the pandemic (P1;2020) and the year after the initial phase (P2;2021).
BMC Palliat Care
January 2025
Kingston University London, London, United Kingdom.
Background: People with intellectual disabilities are less likely to have access to palliative care, and the evidence shows that their deaths are often unanticipated, unplanned for, and poorly managed. Within the general population, people from minoritised ethnic groups are under-represented within palliative care services. End-of-life care planning with people with intellectual disabilities from minoritised ethnic groups may be a way to address these issues.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Physical Activity (PA) and its links to frailty, quality of life (QoL), and other comorbidities in older Ugandans living with HIV remain under-explored.
Methods: We analyzed data from three annual assessments of older people living with HIV (PLWH) and age- and sex-similar people not living with HIV (PnLWH). We fitted linear generalized estimating equations (GEE) regression models to estimate the correlates of PA, including demographics, frailty, QoL, HIV, and other comorbidities.
J Affect Disord
January 2025
Faculty of Health, IMPACCT, University of Technology Sydney, Ultimo, NSW, Australia; Department of Palliative Care, Calvary Health Care, Kogarah, NSW, Australia.
Background: The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted many care systems limiting bereaved people's ability to access social, community, and professional support. This study investigated help-seeking of people living with probable prolonged grief disorder (PGD) to identify challenges and facilitators of care, with the aim of informing bereavement practice and policy recommendations.
Methods: Participants (N = 786; 96.
Introduction: Health-related quality of life (HRQOL) has been reported in clinical trials of pembrolizumab and avelumab treatment of locally advanced or metastatic urothelial carcinoma. However, few studies have investigated the effect of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) on HRQOL in patients with urothelial carcinoma in a real-world setting.
Methods: We included 44 patients with advanced urothelial cancer who were treated with pembrolizumab or avelumab from January 2018 to November 2023.
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