The Voice and Role of Palliative Care in the Era of COVID-19

by Suzana Makowski (@suzanakm)Theguidelines outlined in the recent letter co-sponsored by Pallimed and Geripal serve as important reminders of key messages for clinicians: social distancing, handwashing, use of personal protective equipment to help flatten the curve of viral spread, adhering to protocols about screening, testing and even triaging.I would advocate for another layer of engagement in this effort. Palliative care as a specialty is uniquely positioned to address the people who are likely to be disproportionately affected by the disease: the chronically ill and the aged. After all, this population is the demographic adult palliative care clinicians see frequently.There is a likely double risk to this population – first from the virus itself. While theoverall mortality rate of COVID19 is likely to hover around 1-2%, the mortality rate for people over 80 has been reported to be 14.8-21.9%, for patients with cardiovascular disease 10-13.2%, diabetes 7-9.2%, pulmonary disease 6.3-8%. The second risk is from the triaging that will occur if indeed the burden to the US health system is even half of what is predicted.In this second scenario, hospitals, ICUs, will be overflowing with cases, as reported currently in Italy. The number of hospital beds per capita in the US is far less than those in many other countries. In Italy, ventilators are considered to be gold. Triaging is occurring, with an aim to prioritize intensive care, ventilator utilization for patients most li...
Source: Pallimed: A Hospice and Palliative Medicine Blog - Category: Palliative Care Tags: covid emergency preparedness makowski Source Type: blogs