Implementation of a Standardized Screening Process to Increase Palliative Care Referrals in Primary Care: An...

Despite initiatives to increase palliative care awareness, referrals in primary care settings are still primarily based on provider judgment, causing a lack of appropriate referrals and disparities in access to palliative care resources. The purpose of this quality improvement project was to develop and implement an evidence-based, standardized palliative care referral protocol to increase the palliative care referral rate for eligible patients at a primary care clinic. The project used a preimplementation and postimplementation design with the use of the RE-AIM (Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation, and Maintenance) framework to successfully implement and evaluate the standardized referral process. Over the 10-month project period, the palliative care referral rate increased from 2% (4/193) preimplementation to 11% (16/147) postimplementation of the standardized referral process, which is an increase of 9%. Taking into consideration the potential impact of multiple extraneous variables, there was an overall decrease of 69% in emergency room visits and 73% in hospitalizations for patients who received a palliative care referral. These outcomes support expansion of the standardized referral process throughout other primary care clinics to increase palliative care referrals and sustain a high level of quality patient care.