Default palliative care consultation for seriously ill hospitalized patients: A pragmatic cluster randomized trial

Default palliative care consultation for seriously ill hospitalized patients: A pragmatic cluster randomized trial
JAMA Network, by Katherine R. Courtright, MD, MS; Vanessa Madden, BSc; Brian Bayes, MS, MBMI; Marzana Chowdhury, PhD; Casey Whitman, MS; Dylan S. Small, PhD; Michael O. Harhay, PhD; Suzanne Parra, RN; Elizabeth Cooney-Zingman, MPH; Mary Ersek, RN, PhD; Gabriel J. Escobar, MD; Sarah H. Hill, PhD; Scott D. Halpern, MD, PhD; 1/16/24
Does ordering palliative care by default (allowing opt-out) increase consultation and improve clinical outcomes? Default palliative care consult orders did not reduce length of stay for older inpatients with advanced chronic illnesses, but improved the rate and timing of consultation and some end-of-life care processes.
Publisher note: JAMA Network published two palliative care clinical trials in this issue (1: Default palliative care consultation for seriously ill hospitalized patients: A pragmatic cluster randomized trial, and 2: Nurse and social worker palliative telecare team and quality of life in patients with COPD, heart failure, or interstitial lung disease: The ADAPT randomized clinical trial). There is also an editorial on both of these articles: A tale of 2 palliative care trials: Developing sustainable and transferable models by Ashwin A. Kotwal, MD, MS; Lauren J. Hunt, RN, PhD; Alexander K. Smith, MD, MS, MPH, and an audio interview with Alexander K. Smith, MD, MS, MPH, Patient-centered palliative care.