Center to Advance Palliative Care

Ideally, you'd be able to use clinical computer systems and the admissions department to receive automated or nearly automated alerts when a patient previously seen by inpatient palliative care service is re-admitted to the hospital. I think a lot of us are struggling to make that vision a reality, and that it's not happening as quickly or as easily as we think it should. Other steps you could take in the meantime, while those depts are working on that, are to: 1) Educate and enlist the Emergency Dept to notify you of any returning patients entering through the ED. 2) Make sure that you are providing excellent communication to your referring physicians and your pts' primary care providers regarding your service, and include with that a request that they notify you promptly of the next admission for those patients so that you may assist in their care as quickly as possible. 3) Make sure you receive a daily printout of new admissions and have your lead clinician scan it for your PC patients -- they will be able to recognize a surprising number of names of those they have worked with. These and other steps like these are, of course, just stop-gaps along the way to the ideal solution. Let me know what you think. - Brian Cassel, Senior Analyst, VCU Massey Cancer Center, Thomas Palliative Care Program, a Palliative Care Leadership Center