PV Card: Palliative Care Screening in the Emergency Department
What is Palliative Care? It is specialized medical care focusing on improving the care and quality of life for patients with advanced illness by decreasing suffering. It can be delivered concurrently with curative care. Early identification of patients who are likely to benefit is key. How do you decide whether your patient could benefit from a palliative care consult?
Hot off the presses
We just published in Academic Emergency Medicine a validated screening tool to identify ED patients who would benefit from palliative care [PubMed abstract].1 In an effort to accelerate knowledge dissemination, the checklist is reproduced here in PV card form. Be sure to check out the thoughtful expert peer review below by Dr. Kate Aberger, who is the chair of the ACEP Palliative Care Section.
PV Card: Palliative Care Screening Tool
Adapted from 1–3
- George N, Barrett N, McPeake L, Goett R, Anderson K, Baird J. Content Validation of a Novel Screening Tool to Identify Emergency Department Patients With Significant Palliative Care Needs. Acad Emerg Med. 2015;22(7):823-837. [PubMed]
- Grudzen C, Richardson L, Morrison M, Cho E, Morrison R. Palliative care needs of seriously ill, older adults presenting to the emergency department. Acad Emerg Med. 2010;17(11):1253-1257. [PubMed]
- Wu F, Newman J, Lasher A, Brody A. Effects of initiating palliative care consultation in the emergency department on inpatient length of stay. J Palliat Med. 2013;16(11):1362-1367. [PubMed]
We are excited to announce our new podcast series, 60-Second Soapbox! Each episode, one lucky individual gets exactly 1 whole minute to present their rant-of-choice to the world. Any topic is on the table – clinical, academic, economic, or whatever else may interest an EM-centric audience. Don’t worry if your are microphone-shy. We will carefully remix your audio to add an extra splash of drama and excitement. Even more exciting, participants get to challenge 3 of their peers to stand on a soapbox of their own!
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