Lessons Learned from Quality Improvement Collaboratives in Palliative Care
A study published in the Journal of Palliative Medicine examines lessons from large, multi-center palliative care quality improvement collaboratives that collected standardized patient-level data across diverse settings. The findings show that teams can integrate routine outcome measurement into clinical workflows and use shared benchmarks to compare performance. This approach reveals significant variation in care processes and patient outcomes that is not fully explained by available resources. Across collaboratives, palliative care teams are shown to be improving symptom outcomes, especially pain, while also expanding care to more non-cancer patients and earlier stages of illness, including outpatient and home-based settings. Although several major registries faced sustainability challenges due to funding and infrastructure limitations, the study highlights that collaborative measurement systems can drive quality improvement, support workforce planning, and generate evidence for policy and research.