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The Critical Care Nurse Communicator Program: An Integrated Primary Palliative Care Intervention
Andrew O'Donnell1, April Buffo2, Toby C Campbell3
1Trauma Life Support Center, UW Health, 600 Highland Avenue, Madison, WI 53792, USA.
Abstract:
Twenty percent of Americans die in an intensive care unit (ICU), often incapacitated or requiring assisted decision making. Surrogates are often required to make urgent, complex, high-stakes decisions. Communication among patients, families, and clinicians is often delayed and inefficient with frequent missed opportunities to support the emotional and psychological needs of surrogates, particularly at the end of life. The Critical Care Nurse Communicator program is a nurse-led, primary palliative care intervention designed to improve the quality and consistency of communication in the ICU and address the informational, psychological, and emotional needs of surrogate decision-makers through the shared decision-making process.
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