Palliative Care Research
The Division of Palliative Care leads quality improvement projects to promote earlier access to palliative care, including for patients with stroke, heart failure, and cancer. We have designed and implemented better systems of documentation of serious illness conversations across settings of care. In addition, we track and analyze these conversations to promote best practices in aligning patients’ goals with their medical care. In partnership with Ariadne Labs in Boston, we train our physicians and APPs in effective serious illness conversations, identify high-risk patients, and optimize workflows to promote earlier, better and more conversations with patients about their values and priorities.
We partner with the Department of Population & Quantitative Health Sciences in palliative care research, and our research and quality improvement interests include:
- Improving medical learners' training and experience in palliative care skills
- Ensuring high-quality care, comfort, and dignity for patients isolated by Covid in the hospital
- Preventing healthcare workforce burnout
- Improving safety of opioid prescribing to our outpatients
- Increasing the numbers of appropriate patients we see in the hospital by implementing screening tools for palliative care needs
The Division of Palliative Care is a new member of the Palliative Care Quality Collaborative, a national registry with benchmarking data to guide program development, clinical QI projects and research. This registry will inform our clinical research collaborations with multiple departments, and allow us to plan, measure and analyze new and innovative program growth, especially in community settings.
Learn more at: http://palliativecareresearch.org 