Integrating Palliative and Oncology Care for Patients with Advanced Cancer: A Quality Improvement Intervention

Practice guidelines recommend palliative care for patients with advanced cancer, but gaps in access and quality of care persist.

To increase goals-of-care (GOC) communication for hospitalized patients with Stage IV cancer.

An interdisciplinary team designed a quality improvement intervention to enhance oncology palliative care, including training in communication skills and triggers for palliative care consults.

All adult inpatients with Stage IV cancer and unplanned admission at an 804-bed hospital affiliated with a National Cancer Institute (NCI) Comprehensive Cancer Center.

The primary quality measure was the percentage of patients with Stage IV cancer who had a GOC discussion during hospitalization; secondary measures included screening for pain, dyspnea, spiritual needs, and outcomes of intensive care, hospice, and 30-day readmission.

In the 11-month study period, n = 330, Stage IV cancer patients were hospitalized. Comparing the first three months with the final three months, rates of GOC discussion increased from 29% to 48% (p = 0.013), and specialty palliative care consultation increased from 18% to 33%, (p = 0.026). Rates of symptom screening, intensive care unit transfer, hospice, and 30-day re-admission did not change overall. However, patients with specialty palliative care more frequently had pain screening (91% vs. 81%, p = 0.020), spiritual assessment (48% vs. 10%, p < 0.001), and hospice referral (39% vs. 9%, p < 0.001), and they were less likely to be re-admitted within 30 days (12% vs. 21%, p = 0.059).

Interdisciplinary quality improvement was effective to increase GOC discussions and palliative care consults for patients with Stage IV cancer.