Inpatient Pediatric Palliative Care Consult Requests and Recommendations

Little is known about the requests for and recommendations from inpatient pediatric palliative care (PPC) consults and whether they differ by patient location (ward vs. intensive care unit) or patient type (new vs. established with PPC).

Single-center, retrospective cohort study comparing PPC consult requests and recommendations for children who received a PPC consult between January 1, 2018 and June 30, 2019. Comparisons were made by patient location and patient type using bivariate statistics.

Three hundred twenty-seven PPC encounters were evaluated. Symptoms were more likely to be addressed in consults for ward patients than for intensive care unit patients. Compared with established patients, consults for new patients occurred significantly later in the hospital course and were more likely to be for psychosocial support or goals of care.

We found variability in PPC consult requests and recommendations that may inform future work and targeted education for primary providers.