Past Event
Health care professionals are always looking for more effective ways to relieve and prevent suffering among their patients and to enhance the quality of care. Join us for a discussion on what we know—and what we need to know—about the delivery of palliative care services.
Multimedia
Karl Lorenz, a professor at the Pardee RAND Graduate School, discusses how to improve palliative care training for health practitioners and better engage patients in the health care decisionmaking process.
Journal Article
This study seeks to develop a new prognostic model, the Patient-Reported Outcome Mortality Prediction Tool (PROMPT), for six-month mortality in community-dwelling elderly patients.
Journal Article
Evaluation of implementation of a standardized order set can identify areas for quality improvement and missed opportunities for use.
Journal Article
Longitudinal studies examining care for seriously ill patients are needed to understand patients' experience of illness, evaluate interventions, and improve quality of care. Unfortunately, such studies face substantial methodological challenges. This article describes such challenges and the strategies used to overcome them in a successfully implemented palliative care intervention trial for veterans.
News Release
Patients admitted to a teaching hospital for an end-of-life illness generally receive high-quality medical care, but there is a need for better communication about family expectations and for timely efforts to keep patients comfortable.
Journal Article
Patients admitted to a teaching hospital for an end-of-life illness generally receive high-quality medical care, but there is a need for better communication about family expectations and for timely efforts to keep patients comfortable.
Journal Article
Medical decision making in the context of serious illness ideally involves a patient who understands his or her condition and prognosis and can effectively formulate and communicate his or her care preferences.
Journal Article
The quality of end-of-life care was assessed in disadvantaged men prospectively enrolled in a public assistance program. That end-of-life care would be aggressive, moreso than recommended by quality-of-care guidelines, was hypothesized.
Journal Article
This study assessed hospice use by men dying of prostate cancer and compared the use of high-intensity care between those who did or did not enroll in hospice. Those who enroll in hospice are less likely to receive high-intensity end-of-life care.
Journal Article
Hospice care has been found to improve symptom management, quality of death and quality of life at the end of life.
Journal Article
The purpose of this article is to examine variation in resource utilization across and within patient stays in the context of Medicare's per diem payment system for hospice.
Journal Article
In the United States and abroad, the aging of the population and changes in its demographic and social composition raise important considerations for the future of health care and the systems that pay for care.
Journal Article
Although dyspnea and fatigue are hallmark symptoms of heart failure (HF), the burden of pain may be underrecognized. This study assessed pain in HF and identified contributing factors.
Journal Article
Patients with advanced cancer often do not receive high-quality pain and symptom management or support with coordination of care, communication, and decisionmaking. Posits a conceptual framework for quality indicator development and implementation.
Report
Expansion of home/community end of life services can reduce acute care costs and benefit patients by accommodating expressed preferences on place of death.
Journal Article
Evaluates factors that affect the financial performance of hospice.
Project
Vulnerable elders receive on average only half of recommended care; for conditions that affect primarily the elderly, they receive appropriate care less than one-third of the time. Interventions based on ACOVE indicators can improve the care physicians provide to older adults.
Journal Article
More focus on these satisfaction elements might improve the effectiveness of end-of-life interventions and their evaluation.
Journal Article
Assesses evidence about interventions to improve palliative and end-of-life care.