Association Between Opening a Palliative Care Unit and Hospital Care for Patients With Serious Illness

Abstract

Background: Palliative care units (PCUs) are devoted to intensive management of symptoms and other palliative care needs. We examined the association between opening a PCU and acute care processes at a single U.S. academic medical center. Methods: We retrospectively compared acute care processes for seriously ill patients admitted before and after the opening of a PCU at a single academic medical center. Outcomes included rates of change in code status to do-not-resuscitate (DNR) and comfort measures only (CMO) status, and time to DNR and CMO. We calculated unadjusted and adjusted rates and used logistic regression to assess interaction between care period and palliative care consultation. Results: There were 16,611 patients in the pre-PCU period and 18,305 patients in the post-PCU period. The post-PCU cohort was slightly older, with a higher Charlson index (p < 0.001 for both). Post-PCU, unadjusted rates of DNR and CMO increased from 16.4% to 18.3% (p < 0.001) and 9.3% to 11.5% (p < 0.001), respectively. Post-PCU, median time to DNR was unchanged (0 days), and time to CMO decreased from 6 to 5 days. The adjusted odds ratio was 1.08 (p = 0.01) for DNR and 1.19 (p < 0.001) for CMO. Significant interaction between care period and palliative care consultation for DNR (p = 0.04) and CMO (p = 0.01) suggests an important role for palliative care engagement. Conclusions: The opening of a PCU at a single center was associated with increased rates of DNR and CMO status for seriously ill patients.

Keywords: end-of-life care; inpatient palliative care unit; spillover effects.