Palliative Care in the ICU

Palliative Care Clinical Trial

Official title: Early Palliative Care in the Medical Intensive Care Unit

Status Completed

Clinical Trial Summary

The study compares early palliative care consultation to standard of care in the medical intensive care unit (ICU). The study will assess if the intervention leads to an increased proportion of clearly delineated goals of care and examine if this intervention leads to decreased healthcare resource utilization such as length of stay, duration of intensive treatments including mechanical ventilation, and hospital re-admissions.

Clinical Trial Description

• The medical intensive care unit will be split into two groups, assigned as either early palliative care consultation or standard of care. Current standard of care in the ICU is that primary clinician providers determine the need and time for palliative care consultation, which can occur approximately 5 - 14 days after admission.

• A palliative care screening tool will be used to determine if a newly admitted patient is eligible for palliative care consultation.

• Up to two patients per ICU per weekday will be enrolled into the study, due to workload limitations on the palliative care consult team.

• For patients in the intervention group, a palliative care consultation will be performed within 48 hours of ICU admission and patients will be followed throughout their hospitalization.

• Patients in the standard of care group will receive usual care. Palliative care may be consulted at the primary team's clinical discretion.

• The two medical ICU groups will be crossed over after three months with a washout period of six weeks, for a total of approximately eight months of study

• Electronic medical records will be reviewed after patient discharge to collect data on clinical outcomes as described elsewhere ;

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Palliative Care

• NCT number: NCT03263143
• Study type: Interventional
• Source: Washington University School of Medicine
• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Start date: August 7, 2017
• Completion date: November 30, 2018