Palliative Care Essential to a Hospital System's Pandemic Preparedness Planning
In a special report published in the Journal of Palliative Medicine, Laura P. Gelfman, MD, MPH, et al. describe the rapid expansion and creation of new specialty palliative care services across a New York City health system, in response to the COVID-19 surge (Spring 2020). The authors demonstrate how palliative care services can be quickly titrated, in order to meet the acute increase in hospitalized persons with serious illness due to COVID-19 — and how these services can be tailored to the changing needs across a health system.