The perspectives of in-hospital healthcare professionals on the timing and collaboration in advance care planning: A survey study.

Background: Hospital admissions are common in the last phase of life. However, palliative care and advance care planning (ACP) are provided late or not at all during hospital admission. Aim: To provide insight into the perceptions of in-hospital healthcare professionals concerning current and ideal practice and roles of in-hospital palliative care and advance care planning. Methods: An electronic cross-sectional survey was send 398 in-hospital healthcare professionals in five hospitals in the Netherlands. The survey contained 48 items on perceptions of palliative care and ACP. Results: We included non-specialists who completed the questions of interest, resulting in analysis of 96 questionnaires. Most respondents were nurses (74%). We found that current practice for initiating palliative care and ACP was different to what is considered ideal practice. Ideally, ACP should be initiated for almost every patient for whom no treatment options are available (96.2%), and in case of progression and severe symptoms (94.2%). The largest differences between current and ideal practice were found for patients with functional decline (Current 15.2% versus Ideal 78.5%), and patients with an estimated life expectancy <1 year (Current 32.6% versus ideal 86.1%). Respondents noted that providing palliative care requires collaboration, however, especially nurses noted barriers like a lack of inter-professional consensus. Conclusions: The differences between current and ideal practice demonstrate that healthcare professionals are willing to improve palliative care. To do this, nurses need to increase their voice, a shared vision of palliative care and recognition of the added value of working together is needed.

Challenges in the implementation and evaluation of a transmural palliative care pathway for acutely hospitalized older adults; lessons from the PalliSupport program: A qualitative process evaluation study.

OBJECTIVES: To improve transmural palliative care for acutely admitted older patients, the PalliSupport transmural care pathway was developed. Implementation of this care pathway was challenging. The aim of this study was to improve understanding why the implementation partly failed. DESIGN: A qualitative process evaluation study. SETTING/PARTICIPANTS: 17 professionals who were involved in the PalliSupport program were interviewed. METHODS: Online semi-structured interviews. Thematic analysis to create themes according to the implementation framework of Grol & Wensing. RESULTS: From this study, themes within four levels of implementation emerged: 1) The innovation: challenges in current palliative care, the setting of the pathway and boost for improvement; 2) Individual professional: feeling (un)involved and motivation; 3) Organizational level: project management; 4) Political and economic level: project plan and evaluation. CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS: We learned that the challenges involved in implementing a transmural care pathway in palliative care should not be underestimated. For successful implementation, we emphasize the importance of creating a program that fits the complexity of transmural palliative care. We suggest starting on a small scale and invest in project management. This could help to involve all stakeholders and anticipate current challenges in palliative care. To increase acceptance, create one care pathway that can start and be used in all care settings. Make sure that there is sufficient flexibility in time and room to adjust the project plan, so that a second pilot study can possibly be performed, and choose a scientific evaluation with both rigor and practical usefulness to evaluate effectiveness.