Center to Advance Palliative Care

I actually am starting a similar project in concunction with one of the pulmonary critical care physicians in our ICU. He has been doing education with the physicians and I with other staff. We decided to utilize the Norton et al study on proactive ICU consults as the basis and are starting utilizing their criteria for consult. I will round in the ICU and when a pt is id'd who meets criteria, I will leave a letter on the chart for the physician informing them and that palliative care will see within 24 hrs to address goals of care and assist with education and decision-making,unless I hear otherwise, leaving them room to write notes or call me. I am sure I will get some push back from a few docs, but for the most part they are ok with it, so far. That is as close as I can get to automatic referrals at present. The ultimate goal is automatic consults, but we are starting here 1st. The major thing that will contribute to our success in this is the support of the critical care docs and nursing staff.