Vince Lombardi Cancer Clinic, Aurora Cancer Care, Aurora Healthcare, Sheboygan, WI
Cheruppolil R. Santhosh-Kumar, Deborah Gray, Stephanie Struve, Carol Huibregtse
Background: Integrating early palliative care with cancer treatment improves quality of life and survival. Effective communication among physicians, patients and their loved ones is crucial to end-of-life, hospice and palliative care discussions. To address the inherent challenges in these discussions, we implemented a structured outpatient palliative care family conference (OFC) program at our community cancer clinic. Methods: A team comprising a hematologist/oncologist, cancer nurse navigator and social worker developed a toolkit for conducting an OFC, recognizing that each family conference is a unique adaptive challenge. New patients with advanced malignancies and limited life expectancy (<12 months) were offered a 90-minute structured OFC attended by the care team, patient and family members and or friends. Pre and post-conference patient satisfaction surveys and other data were collected prospectively. Results: From March 2014 through May 2015, fortyOFC were conducted (16 female and 24 male patients, median age: 67 years). Diagnoses were advanced gastrointestinal (14), lung (12), hematologic (6) and other (8) malignancies. As a direct result of the OFC program, 18 patients ordered do-not-resuscitate bracelets, 15 completed advanced directives, 7 submitted paperwork for disabled parking permits, 7 were referred to hospice and 4 for rehabilitation therapy. Further results are shown in the table. Conclusions: Structured outpatient palliative care family conferences improve satisfaction of end-of-life discussions and facilitate integration of palliative care options. Enhanced communication between providers, patients and loved ones eases the challenges of such discussions. The OFC approach could be a model for integrating palliative care in community cancer clinics.
# of attendees per OFC | 3-16 |
---|---|
Patient satisfaction scores | 100% |
Improved communication between physician and patient | 97.5% |
Improved communication between patient, loved ones and care team | 97.5% |
Improved communication between patient and family | 97.5% |
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