Using Medicare Data to Identify Serious Illness in Older Surgical Patients

Palliative care delivered alongside surgical or trauma care is associated with improved quality of communication and quality of end-of-life care, reduced suffering, and lower healthcare utilization. However, despite its benefits seriously ill surgical patients are less likely to receive palliative care than other hospitalized patients (1). In response, The American College of Surgeons has endorsed the National Consensus Guidelines for Quality Palliative Care and recently issued its own guidelines promoting domains of palliative care in routine geriatric surgical and trauma care.
Source: Journal of Pain and Symptom Management - Category: Palliative Care Authors: Tags: Letter Source Type: research