0. Palliative Care Consult Service
Dr. David Grossman, MD
Brenda Eastham, CRNP
Marge Lang, LCSW

1. What is Palliative Care?
Medical specialty focused on the relief of suffering associated with serious illness
Physical Suffering
Emotional Suffering
Social Suffering
Spiritual Suffering
Beginning at the moment of diagnosis can help address symptoms and set goals of care

2. What is the Palliative Care Consult Service?
Medical specialty team that supports physician’s care of patients and families with serious and life threatening illness
Certified Palliative Care Physician
Certified Palliative Care Nurse Practitioner
Licensed Clinical Social Worker

3. Palliative Care Consult Service
Focused on
Improvement of quality of life for both patient and family
At all stages of illness
Simultaneously with curative care
Treatment of complex pain and symptoms
Management of time-intensive patient-family communication

4. When should I consult Palliative Care?
Patients who require complex pain and symptom management where relief of symptoms is hard to achieve
Patients/Families with time-intensive communication regarding goals of care and treatment options
Help coordinate treating physician’s plan of care
Discharge planning

5. Why Should I Consult Palliative Care?
Number of Americans living with debilitating chronic and life threatening illness is growing
Supports physician by supplementing and facilitating the plan of care
Evidenced-based medical treatment
Lower pain and discomfort
Improve patient outcomes
Improve patient satisfaction

6. Early Palliative Care for Metastatic NSCLC
Randominized 151 palliative care study Mass Gen NEJM – assigned to palliative care had better quality of life than standard care 98 vs 91.5
Palliative care group had fewer depressive symptoms 16 vs 38
Early palliativ e care group than in standard care g roup received aggressive end-of-life care median survival was longer among pall 11.6 vs 8.9 mos
NEJM 363; AUG.19, 2010

7. How do I consult Palliative Care?
Go to Soarian Clinicals Order Entry
CPOE Physician Consults
Palliative Medicine
Reason for consult
Pain Management
Non-Pain Symptom Management
Goals of Care
Transition Planning
Advance Care Planning
Complex Family Management
Withdrawal of Life-Prolonging Interventions
Other
Free text message

8. How can I contact the nurse practitioner?
Brenda Eastham –
IntelliWeb – alpha page
Office Number
Leave consult information
Patients name
Physician consulting
Reason for consultation