Update in Hospice and Palliative Care

Objective: The objective of this update, presented at the 2018 Annual Assembly of the American Association of Hospice and Palliative Medicine (AAHPM) and the Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association (HPNA), is to identify, summarize, and critique a sampling of recent research that has the potential for marked impact on hospice and palliative clinical practice. Methods: In a departure from previous years, we surveyed AAHPM and HPNA members to determine focused topic areas, from which we selected candidate articles. The two topic areas selected by the membership were Moving into the great beyond: bringing palliative care into the subspecialties and Improving the conversation for patients with serious illness. Seven reports of original research published between January 1, 2012 and November 3, 2017 were identified through a systematic search of relevant databases, hand searching of leading journals, and discussion with experts in the field. Candidate articles were scored and ranked independently by four reviewers based on methodological quality, appeal to a breadth of palliative care clinicians across settings, and potential for impact. Results: We summarize the seven articles with the highest ratings.