Center to Advance Palliative Care

Hi, I'm sorry that no one responded to your post on July 9th. Hopefully the responses to a similar question posted more recently would be helpful to you, see the "Pt Sat Surveys" post in this section. Regarding the specific issues you raise, most of the questions on the recommended tools are equally applicable for survivors as well as decedents' families. It is difficult for most PC programs to do an adequate job of comparing PC and usual care patients. Is it necessary to do so? Are you expected to have significantly higher satisfaction scores, or merely demonstrate that satisfaction is not lowered? If you do need to go that route, please be aware that for most patients/families in most hospitals, general satisfaction is ordinarily pretty high, and it may be difficult to exceed that score (what we call a 'ceiling effect'). I recommend, if you do need to do a comparison, that you get the Performance Improvement or similar office of your hospital to conduct such an evaluation as a neutral third party. Work with them on the design and measurement, so that you are assured that the domains appropriate for a PC population are being included, but get them to conduct the study. This solves three problems: Who can access non-PC patients, who will foot the bill, and whose data will be believed and trusted by all stakeholders. Let me know what you think. Again, my apologies for not responding to this post in the past three months.
Brian Cassel,
Senior Analyst,
Thomas Palliative Care Program,
VCU Massey Cancer Center,
A Palliative Care Leadership Center