Center to Advance Palliative Care

Hello Everyone!

I am an RN in the pallaitive care department of a very large tertiary academic children's hospital. We are in the process of evaluating our palliative care program structure, and would appreciate hearing from other programs regarding these questions:

1. Please describe the level of involvement of physicians in your palliative care consults. Do you have a palliative care physician see every palliative care patient? If not, how often, etc.

2. When you receive a new palliative care consult, what is the process? Who does it? Can a nurse do a consult independently? Nurse Practitioner? Physician? How quickly do you see patients once the consult is received?

3. What type of patients do you see in your program? Hem-onc? NICU? PICU? Other disciplines?

4. How many patients do you have in your program? (Describe in whatever way is easiest---average number on you service at one time, in a month, in a year, etc.)

5. Do you see both inpatients and outpatients in your program? If you see outpatients, do you have a separate palliative care clinic?

We would appreciate hearing from other programs to help guide some of our thoughts surrounding these issues.

If you would prefer to respond to me privately, feel free to e-mail me at stacy.smith@childrens.com.

Thank you!

Stacy C. Smith, BSN, RN, CHPPN