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Most clinicians who work in intensive care units (ICUs) can tell stories about benefits of collaborating with palliative care teams. Despite this intuitive sense, studies of structured palliative care interventions in the ICU have yielded mixed results, and the best strategy for implementation remains elusive. In this study, investigators in St. Louis assigned two medical ICUs at a single institution to provide early palliative care consultation (within 48 hours of ICU admission) or usual care.
The investigators enrolled 200 patients with characteristics associated with high risk for morbidity or mortality (e.g., advanced cancer, cardiac arrest with neurological compromise, end-stage dementia). All patients in the intervention ICU received p…