Date of Award
4-30-2025
Degree Type
Evidence-Based Project Report
Degree Name
Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)
Department
Nursing
First Advisor
Christine Paquin
Abstract
Palliative care (PC) is specialized care that aims to provide relief from the stress and symptoms of living with a serious illness (Center to Advance Palliative Care, 2022). PC services are often underutilized in the hospital, leaving a significant number of patients with unmet needs (Haranis et al, 2023; Kawashima & Evans, 2023; Smith et al, 2019). The purpose of this evidence-based practice project was to improve processes for identifying hospitalized patients for referral to specialty inpatient PC. The intervention involved interdisciplinary rounds (IDR) for adult inpatients on two medical-surgical (MESG) units in an 84-bed community hospital in suburban Milwaukee, WI. An educational tool addressing patient-centered PC criteria was created and distributed to the nursing staff of the MESG units and to the hospital medicine team. Additionally, the PC specialist attended IDRs on the two MESG units three days a week to foster collaboration between the PC specialty and generalist providers. A total of 52 patients were identified for PC referral from the two MESG during the intervention. The primary outcome was the PC penetration rate, the percentage of all hospital patients that are referred to specialty PC. Secondary measures were the pre-consult length of stay and 30-day readmission rate. Wilcoxon signed-rank testing was used to compare pre- and post-intervention metrics, however despite positive clinical trends, none of the outcomes demonstrated statistical significance. An increase in collaboration between the hospitalists and the PC specialist was noted, however staff nurses were not involved as much as anticipated. Further research is indicated to inform the timely recognition of PC need among hospitalized adults by non-PC specialist providers, including nursing.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Blunt, Brenda A., "Use of Interdisciplinary Rounds for the Identification of Hospitalized Adults in Need of Palliative Care" (2025). Evidence-Based Practice Project Reports. 213.
https://scholar.valpo.edu/ebpr/213
Included in
Clinical and Medical Social Work Commons, Palliative Care Commons, Palliative Nursing Commons
