Mastodon What Makes Up High-Quality Primary Palliative Care in Oncology? ~ Pallimed

Wednesday, September 7, 2016

What Makes Up High-Quality Primary Palliative Care in Oncology?

by Ross Albert

I'm surprised that I’m not hearing more about the recent ‘Guidance Statement’ put out by the collaboration of ASCO and AAHPM on “Defining High-Quality Palliative Care in Oncology Practice.” (OPEN ACCESS PDF) It’s a report that provides some very interesting insight into what pieces of primary palliative care should be part of general medical oncologists’ practice.

When I read it the report, I was pleased to see that it was published in ASCO’s journal, and I noted the impressive list of authors. My eyes briefly glazed over as the discussion moved to Delphi methodology, but a few quick Wikipedia searches on study-design later, I was back on track, diving into the data. I am, of course speaking about that in jest—these statements and guidelines need to be rigorous and they need to be done with well-defined methodology.

The group essentially did the following:

  1. Gather a bunch of very smart oncologists and palliative care professionals.
  2. Give them a list of nearly 1000 statements of specific actions that might be part of high-quality primary palliative care practice in oncology.
  3. Have them decide if those items are definitely/maybe/not part of primary palliative care that oncologists should regularly be doing.

The panel also grouped these practices into “Domains” for organization: End-of-Life Care, Communication and Shared Decision Making, Advance Care Planning, Appropriate Palliative Care and Hospice Referral, Symptom Assessment and Management, Carer Support, Coordination and Continuity of Care, Psychosocial Assessment and Management, and Spiritual and Cultural Assessment and Management.

The panel’s views on the different domains were informative. The highest percentage of items which the panel endorsed as “Included” in primary palliative practice by oncologists were in the realms of End-of-Life Care, Communication and Shared Decision Making, Advance Care Planning—more than 75% of items assessed were deemed to be part of standard practice. The lowest percentage was in Coordination and Continuity of Care, Psychosocial Assessment and Management, and Spiritual and Cultural Assessment and Management—with less than 50% of the items assessed deemed part of standard primary palliative practice by oncologists.

These numbers don’t mean that oncologists aren’t interested in any Coordination of Care though—It means, for example, that while the item “Communicating current prognosis to primary care [provider]” was thought to be included within their regular scope, that “Obtaining family/surrogate feedback regarding clinic practice of coordination and continuity” was thought not to be—again, they looked at nearly 1000 specific actions.

As a palliative care physician, I found the data included on symptom management most interesting. The report showed a figure with 23 symptoms ranked in order of whether items related to them were thought to be “Included” or “Uncertain” to be part of oncologists’ general practice (also remember that there was a third “Not Included” category, to put this data into perspective). Chemotherapy-related toxicity, nausea and vomiting, dyspnea, fatigue—over 90% of the items were thought to be “Included” as part of standard practice. Pain—66% of the items evaluated were deemed part of standard practice, and 33% “Uncertain.” Depression and anxiety—only 27% and 20% of these items were thought to be “Included” as part of primary palliative care activities for oncologists.

So how do we use this data? Again, the report doesn’t show that oncologists aren’t interested in treating depression, or aren’t interested in psychosocial aspects of their patients. But, it does show that there were pieces of the care of depression, and pieces of psychosocial care that might fall outside of what oncologists might be doing in their practices. This tells me that while I, the palliative care specialist, might be able to help control a patient’s nausea or fatigue, this panel notes that the general oncologist might feel that they’ve got those symptoms mostly covered. But instead, as the collaborating consultant, it sounds like extra support with pain, anxiety and depression, and extra psychosocial and spiritual care would be welcome. It also seems that while a physician or APRN might have value being placed in an oncology clinic, we really need to pull in our social workers, psychologists, and chaplain colleagues to care for patients in aspects that oncologists are likely least comfortable performing as part of their standard practice.

Dr. Ross Albert is the chief of the division of palliative medicine at Hartford Hospital, and the medical director for the Hartford HealthCare at Home Hospice teams, in Hartford CT.


Reference:
Bickel KE, McNiff K, Buss MK, Kamal A, Lupu D, Abernethy AP, Broder MS, Shapiro CL, Acheson AK, Malin J, Evans T, Krzyzanowska MK. “Defining High-Quality Palliative Care in Oncology Practice: An American Society of Clinical Oncology/American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine Guidance Statement.” Journal of Oncology Practice. Published online August 16, 2016.

Image Credit: From the article cited above. 

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