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In medical intensive care units (MICUs), many patients undergo treatments that prolong hospitalization but not long-term survival. In this study from the University of Rochester, researchers examined the effect of proactive palliative care (PC) consultation on MICU length of stay.
The investigators developed criteria (cardiac arrest, metastatic malignancy, age >80 with multiple life-threatening comorbidities, etc.) to identify patients who might benefit from PC consultation. During a 4-month control phase, 65 patients met these criteria; attending physicians requested PC consultation for only 5 of these patients. Next, during a 7-month proactive PC intervention phase, all 126 patients who met the criteria received PC consultation. Mean MICU …