Increasing Access to Palliative Care Services in the Intensive Care Unit

Background: The Institute of Medicine" s report, Dying in America, highlights the critical need for the widespread implementation of palliative care to improve end-of-life care. 1 Approximately 20% of all deaths in America occur during or shortly after an intensive care unit (ICU) admission 2; therefore, it is important for critical care units to have systems in place to facilitate patient access to palliative care services.(1,3,4) Objectives: The aim of this quality improvement (QI) project was to develop and implement a palliative care screening tool using evidence-based triggers to help increase the proportion of palliative care consultations in the ICU setting. Methods: A QI project was designed and implemented in a 14-bed medical-surgical ICU in the southeastern United States using the Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle. 5 A palliative care screening tool was developed by an interdisciplinary team of key stakeholders in the ICU using evidence-based triggers, and staff were educated on the intervention. The proportion of ICU patients who received a palliative care consultation was compared preintervention and postintervention to determine whether the QI project contributed to an increased proportion of palliative care consultations. Results: The proportion of palliative care consultations among patients admitted to the ICU by the pulmonary critical care team increased from 1 of 10 preintervention to 3 of 10 postintervention, resulting in a promising increase in patients receiving palliative care services consistent with evidence-based recommendations. Conclusion: The use of an evidence-based screening tool to trigger palliative care consultation in the ICU setting can aid in increasing the proportion of critical care patients who receive a palliative care referral. The increase in the proportion of palliative care referrals by the pulmonary critical care service warrants expansion of the intervention to include additional medical subspecialists who frequently admit patients in this ICU setting. Further assessment of the intervention is warranted to determine whether the screening tool can aid in increasing palliative care consultations for more patients admitted to the hospital's ICU.