Related Experiment Video
Updated: Sep 17, 2025
Generation of Comprehensive Thoracic Oncology Database - Tool for Translational Research
Published on: January 22, 2011
Paediatric palliative care medical hotline: retrospective database study
Tchadine Djaogol1, Julien Gautier2, Helene Martinez1
1Equipe ressource de soins palliatifs pédiatriques de Rhône Alpes (ESPPéRA), Centre Leon Berard, Lyon, France.
Insights
Paediatric palliative care (PPC) medical hotline assistance (MHLA) effectively managed out-of-hours emergencies. This service helped avoid emergency unit admissions for 88% of critical calls, ensuring timely support for children and families.
Area of Science:
- Pediatrics
- Palliative Care
- Emergency Medicine
Background:
- Clinical emergencies can arise unexpectedly in paediatric palliative care (PPC).
- A dedicated PPC team provides 24/7 medical hotline assistance (MHLA).
- This study analyzes MHLA usage during out-of-hours periods in 2021.
Purpose of the Study:
- To characterize the utilization of the MHLA service.
- To describe the immediate patient pathways following MHLA contact.
- To evaluate the impact of MHLA on emergency unit admissions.
Main Methods:
- Retrospective analysis of MHLA calls from patients/families followed by the PPC team in 2021.
- Categorization of calls based on origin (patient/family vs. team), content (symptom management, care coordination, psychological support), and urgency.
- Tracking of patient disposition following MHLA contact.
Main Results:
- 160 out-of-hours calls were registered concerning 31 patients, many with disabilities.
- Calls primarily involved symptom management and care coordination.
- 47% of calls were emergencies; 88% of these emergency calls successfully avoided hospital emergency unit transfer.
Conclusions:
- Out-of-hours MHLA is crucial for managing clinical emergencies in paediatric palliative care.
- The service effectively reduces emergency unit admissions.
- MHLA provides essential support, ensuring appropriate care management at home.
Background:
Clinical emergencies may occur at any time in paediatric palliative care (PPC). Our PPC team offers an on-call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week medical hotline assistance (MHLA). We report the experience of our MHLA during 2021, focusing on phone calls registered out of working hours.
Methods:
Patients/families followed up by our team and who used the MHLA during 2021 were considered. The aims were to characterise the use of MHLA and to describe the immediate patient's pathway.
Results:
232 children/families were followed. Half had disabilities or multiple disabilities. Though each patient benefited from advanced care planning, medical advice requests to/from families (N=864) were registered out of working hours in 160 (19%) cases. They concerned 31 different patients. Incoming calls were made by parents (n=130: 81%), or caregivers (n=19: 12%), while our team called a hospital team (n=11: 7%) to either announce and discuss hospitalisation (n=9) or discuss medical plan while the child stayed at home (n=2). Most calls dealt with a combination of symptom management (n=150), coordination of care (n=9), psychological support (n=3) and/or coordination of the home-hospital trajectory (n=11). 76 (47%) were classified as emergencies: 55/76 concerned clinical situations deemed 'biomedical emergencies' (need for therapeutic adaptation), while 21/76 were solved by reassurance. Only 9/76 (12%) were transferred to the hospital unit.
Conclusion:
Day and night medical advice requests managed by our PPC team out of working hours helped to avoid admission to the emergency unit in 88% of overall emergency calls received.
More Related Videos
Related Concept Videos
01:25Continuing Care
01:21Cancer Survival Analysis
01:27Nursing Ethical Principles II
Consider the following scenario, which illustrates how these principles are applied in the care of Mr. John, a fifty-year-old teacher diagnosed with metastatic liver cancer.
Initially, Mr. John's...
01:29Data Collection II
02:20Longitudinal Research
01:26Types of Reports III: Telephone and Verbal Reports
Here's an overview of each type:
Telephone Orders