Tuesday, June 5, 2007
1:30 - 2:30 PM Eastern

FEATURED SPEAKER

Daniel E. Ray, MD, MS, FCCP
Director, Critical Care Unit and Co-Director, Neuroscience Intensive Care Unit
Co-Principal Investigator, Palliative Care in the ICU Project
Lehigh Valley Hospital and Health Network


ABOUT THE PRESENTATION

The integration of palliative care as a component of comprehensive critical care has been identified as a necessity for all critically ill patients. However, technological advances in medicine that have led to dramatic improvements in intervention and cure options have frequently resulted in delaying palliative care for critical care patients and their families until death is imminent. Many physicians in modern critical care units also focus more upon physiologic outcomes than psychosocial aspects of patient care.

Since the inception of a formal critical care program at Lehigh Valley Hospital in 1999, outcomes other than mortality have been made a priority. It is due to this recognition of other “non-traditional” outcomes, that more formal integration of palliative medicine into critical care has been successful.

Click here to download the PowerPoint presentation.