Mastodon Routine Palliative Medicine Consults for VAD Destination Therapy ~ Pallimed

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Routine Palliative Medicine Consults for VAD Destination Therapy


HT: @LVADone on Twitter. I got wind of this article from one of his tweets.

In this month's issue of the Mayo Clinic Proceedings is the first article reporting on a case series with inclusion of palliative medicine (PM) consultations as a routine, integrated part of pre-op or early post-op care for patients receiving ventricular assist device (VAD) as destination therapy (DT). Both Drew and Holly have posted previously on Pallimed about VAD DT.

The Mayo Clinic is a nationally and internationally recognized tertiary and quaternary referral center. As such, beyond the ordinarily sick patients, the Mayo Clinic treats some extremely sick patients, patients who come to be cured, as well as patients who are a mixture of both. The Mayo Clinic recently performed its 100th heart translpant, and they having been implanting VADs as both bridge therapy and as DT. As such, they offer sub-sub-specialty training in Mechanical Circulatory Support and Cardiac Transplantation.


Problematic situations and ethical quandries arise in these environments, given the complexity of the patients, the psycho-social stresses on patients and family members, the array of complications as well the spectrum of outcomes, including "destination nowhere," – a functioning VAD in an otherwise moribund patient. In response, a process of interdisciplinary dialogue at the Mayo Clinic concluded that it would be beneficial to offer PM consultations as a part of standard multidiscipinary care of these patients.

In this consecutive case series, 19 VAD implantations were performed, over a 50-week period. 13 patients (68%) received PM consultations, consisting of an initial intervention of a psychosocial evaluation by a social worker as well as a review of goals of care and advance care plans with PM clinicians, with post-op follow-up. Most PM consultations were proactive and pre-op. The advantage of proactive PM consultations in having already established familiarity and rapport among the patient, family and the PM team was highlighted.

The case series is summarized with patient characteristics, PM consultation status, survival and assessment of end-of-life trajectory. During this period, 5 of these patients died, of which 4 had had PM consultations, 3 had completed a pre-VAD advanced directive. 6 illustrative cases are discussed.

The writers do a nice job of describing their extensive advance care planning process unique to this patient population. They refer to this product as their "preparedness plan," which goes well above and beyond traditional advance directives. The preparedness plan assisted patients and families in thinking about goals and expectations, post-op rehabilitation, psychosocial, spiritual/religious and financial considerations, caregiving concerns, QOL determinants, complications specific to VAD and DT, perioperative morbidity and mortality and ethical issues that may affect clinical DT outcomes. When adverse events occurred, the PM team assisted with preparedness plan implementation, symptom management, and family- and patient-centered support.

Some Thoughts
I noticed that as the series progressed there appeared to be emerging trends of decreasing frequency of PM consultations, more post-op PM consultations, and decreasing frequency of pre-VAD advanced directives (presumably the patients lacking a PM consultation also lacked the more thorough and arguably more useful, personalized preparedness plan). The post-op mortality improved as the series progressed as well. Previous to this endeavor no DT patients at Mayo received proactive PM consultations, and only 14% received any PM consultation whatsoever. This is a small sample and the signal-to-noise ratio is high. Nonetheless the pattern made me wonder if this represents post-conversion, systemic back-sliding/falling-off-the-wagon, although this is expressly not reflected in the discussion.

For discussion sake, I have seen team members and team leadership variously disinclined from parceling out slices of patient care to outsiders. Such teams seem inclined towards jettisoning outside support earlier rather than later in the practice development curve. Sometimes I have seen such jettisoning at the merest blush of the team demonstrating basic competence, at a minimal level of performance, as if going solo were the overriding goal, versus the goal being optimizing outcomes and processes. As has been noted on Pallimed repeatedly, if primary teams can make the necessary time available, and have the multi-disciplinary resources, expertise and communication skills on their team then there's no need for a PM consult. But, I think that such is rare, and complicated care with complicated patients takes organizational specialization and delegation, plus a willingness not to do it all.

Any thoughts or experience from the trenches?

ResearchBlogging.orgSwetz KM, Freeman MR, Abouezzeddine OF, Carter KA, Boilson BA, Ottenberg AL, Park SJ, & Mueller PS (2011). Palliative medicine consultation for preparedness planning in patients receiving left ventricular assist devices as destination therapy. Mayo Clinic proceedings. Mayo Clinic, 86 (6), 493-500 PMID: 21628614

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