876 The experience of a palliative care team linked to an oncology department

Abstract

The World Health Organization's model for Palliative Care in the future envisages earlier integration of Palliative Care (PC) Teams with curative oncology. With this aim, specific PC Teams have been created and, some of them, linked to Oncology Departments in Catalonia, as part of a WHO Demonstration Program, supported by Catalonia's Government Health Department. Method This study examined the relationship between a newly stablished General Hospital Palliative Care Team attached to an Oncology Department. The Unit consisted of a full-time doctor and two nurses and a part-time social worker and secretary. Team activities were performed inside the hospital, attending both in-patient and out-patient consultation. Teaching to General Practitioners and Community nurses on specific PC aspects was an important team's target as well as internal formation. We analyzed the increase of referrals from Oncology department as well as patients survival time and median days of hospitalization. Results and Condusions Among main difficulties we found the long time to dispose of long-term beds to refer patients with acceptable symptom control but still not able to go back home, the difficulty from other colleagues to understand multidisciplinary team work and the misadapted rooms at hospital to permit patients’ relatives to accompany them. The advantages of a PC Team were to have a specific trained Team in cancer Pain Treatment and the patient feeling of not to be changed to another department or room when discharged to the PC Team. The annual increase in new patients referred to the PC Team and the low number of days of hospitalization for patients accepted at PC team (Mean: 11.7 days) signaled the team's good acceptance and an acceptable control of patients’ symptoms. We encourage to develop such PC Teams at General Hospitals and to be linked to Oncology Departments.