The Trifecta of Community-Based Palliative Care: Preventing Hospitalizations, Improving Symptoms, and Timely End-of-Life Care (SA541)

Abstract

•Identify three clinical interventions for use in the home setting that aid in prevention of hospitalization.•Demonstrate knowledge of three tools for collecting multilevel metrics (operational, clinical, financial, customer satisfaction).•Identify one intervention to assist patients and families with early decision-making and goals-of-care conversations. Studies on the efficacy of home-based palliative care programs are sparse, as the bulk of research has been conducted on hospital-based consult teams. As the face of health care changes and hospitals receive more scrutiny over repeat hospitalizations for symptom-based admissions, attention is turning to home-based palliative care programs as a means to managing patients who fall “into the gap” between chronic care and hospice care. Very little research exists on the benefit of home-based programs in terms of outcomes; the first journal article addressing home-based palliative care program efficacy was published in the September 2013 issue of the Journal of Palliative Medicine. As evidenced in our program, a home-based program assists in symptom management, reduces hospitalizations, assists in completing goals of conversations earlier in the disease process (as opposed to a few days before death), and promotes a general increased feeling of patient well-being.