A Strategy for Inpatient Evaluation and Improvement of the Quality of Our Palliative Care Team: Iterative Evaluations of Changes in a Palliative Screening Tool

ABSTRACT

To introduce early palliative care to patients, we have proactively used a palliative care screening tool to identify needs. We have emphasized not doing work in a routine manner, rather seeking to improve by continuous reevaluations. Because of a lack of feedback regarding changes in screening scores and actionable solutions derived from it, we executed a retrospective study about the effectiveness of our palliative care team and the identification of problems. All 91 cases studied meaningfully ameliorated their focused symptoms. However, we could not verify our team’s effectiveness because the backgrounds of patients who were eligible but not involved with our team differed significantly. The current study suggested that some patients missed opportunities to receive palliative care. We need to strengthen the system used with our patients as a safety-net so as not to overlook care opportunities by utilizing more effective screening methodology.