Background: Patients with advanced cancer often require complex symptom management. At Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center, the intensive palliative care unit (IPCU) admits oncology patients with uncontrolled symptoms throughout the trajectory of illness. A DNR/DNI is not required for admission. These patients are managed by an interdisciplinary team of palliative care clinicians who focus on symptom management and advanced care planning. The purpose of our analysis was to investigate goals of care outcomes and healthcare utilization after admission to the IPCU. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed patient, diagnosis, IPCU admission, and code status characteristics among 74 oncology patients admitted to the IPCU in August and September 2013. We examined the distribution of goals of care pre- and post-index IPCU admission. Results: A total of 67 IPCU patients received palliative chemotherapy and/or radiation while seven patients received curative intent treatment. All patients had documented goals of care discussion during the IPCU admission. Of the palliative intent treatment patients, 58% of patients were transferred to the IPCU from medical oncology and 42% were directly admitted. The median age was 64 (range: 25-90 years), and 57% were female. Forty-eight percent of the patients were diagnosed with metastatic lung, genitourinary, or gastrointestinal cancer. Eighty-seven percent of patients reported pain as the chief complaint and all patients documented multiple symptoms (median = two). Twenty-five patients (37%) experienced a change in code status from FULL to DNR/DNI. A total of eight patients died in the IPCU and 50% of these experienced a code status change during the index admission. Eighty-eight percent of patients were discharged alive. Of those, 49% were discharged to home hospice, general inpatient hospice, or an inpatient hospice facility. The risk of 30 day readmission was 4% (95% CI -1%-9%) adjusted for the competing risk of death. Conclusions: Our findings suggest the inpatient palliative care unit helps clarify goals of care, aids in appropriate hospice referrals, and decreases unnecessary hospital readmissions among advanced cancer patients.