Ask how palliative care can benefit your patients.
In patients with a terminal diagnosis or complex co-morbidity, the physician-patient relationship can often become strained. Frequent hospital admissions, unmanageable pain and nausea, ravaging symptoms, and uncontrollable fear or distress are common.
In greater than 90 percent of such cases, a palliative specialist can help the primary care physician get pain and other symptoms under control, and help patients and families manage emotional distress.
According to the National Hospice & Palliative Care Organization, collaboration between physicians and palliative care organizations creates clinical benefits including:
- Reduced symptom burden
- Care concordant with patient-family preferences
- Patient-family professional consensus on the goal of medical care
- Improved patient and family satisfaction
- Reduced costs via shortened length of hospital stays and more appropriate treatment