Challenges and Opportunities: Improving the Perioperative Experience for Patients Receiving Palliative Care (FR415)

1. Identify your ED/PC ‘‘Champions.’’ Specific case examples highlighting unmet palliative care needs in the ED are described, as well as the identification of clinical and administrative staff best suited to foster lasting changes. 2. Review the existing literature. By incorporating important emergency medicine policy statements, major review articles, and consensus reports, we provide essential information to support the initiation of collaborative work with the ED. 3. Identify ED resources. Recommendations are offered to actively engage the interdisciplinary ED team (physicians, nurses, social workers, chaplaincy, aides, and administrators) in the use of key PC resources. 4. Develop a plan to complete a needs assessment. We provide a sample self-assessment tool to catalog strengths and limitations of the existing ED services and their interface with outpatient, pre-hospital, and hospital-based services. The session will conclude with specific quality improvement recommendations to engage stakeholders and to measure outcomes.