The Impact of Integrating Palliative Medicine Into COVID-19 Critical Care

BACKGROUND: Ensuring high-quality patient-centered care for critically ill coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients presents unprecedented challenges. Many patients become critically ill unexpectedly and have not previously discussed their health-care wishes. Clinicians lack experience with this illness and therefore struggle to predict patient outcomes. MEASURES: Critical care medicine (CCM) providers were surveyed about the effectiveness and efficiency of a pilot intervention. INTERVENTION: Proactive palliative care rounding with CCM providers on COVID-19 intensive care units. OUTCOMES: Fifty-four percent of CCM providers responded to the survey (21/39). CCM providers rated the intervention highly across all domains. CCM providers frequently identified that early palliative involvement was critical to providing families with information and support when separated from their loved ones. CONCLUSIONS/LESSONS LEARNED: This pilot study found that proactive rounding improves critical care provider assessments of quality of care for patients and families and allows CCM providers to focus their efforts on managing complex physiology and surges.