Center to Advance Palliative Care

You have several questions in this post--I'll do my best to answer:

1. The term virtual unit is used to describe a physical location where specialized PC can be provided, but the beds can swing between PC and non-PC uses. The question of how many many beds are likely to be used by PC will depend on how you plan to use them--the criteria for moving/admitting a patient. For a hospital with an ADC of 500, you should expect 250--500 consults in the first year of operation, if your program is fully staffed. How many go to the virtual unit is variable--it's your choice on setting the admitting criteria--I will discuss this on the audioconference.

2. Automatic consult--for the unit to function properly, there needs to be oversight by the PC team. So, any patient admitted to unit must have a PC consult, this of course assumes that the primary MD retains their role and the PC staff are consultants.

3. The same unit at our hospital that houses the PC virtual unit, is also the unit that provides inpatient nursing care for all Sickle Cell patients. However, that is a separate program from Palliative Care; we do not see those patients unless specifically consulted--they are operationally distinct programs, but provided by the same nursing staff.

David E. Weissman, MD
Professor and Director of Palliative Care
Medical College of Wisconsin
Palliative Care Leadership Center (Faculty)