Increasing the Number of Outpatients Receiving Spiritual Assessment: A Pain and Palliative Care Service Quality Improvement Project

Abstract Background Spirituality is a patient need that requires special attention from the Pain and Palliative Care Service team. This quality improvement project aimed to provide spiritual assessment for all new outpatients with serious life-altering illnesses. Measures Percentage of new outpatients receiving spiritual assessment (Faith, Importance/Influence, Community, Address/Action in care, psychosocial evaluation, chaplain consults) at baseline and postinterventions. Intervention Interventions included encouraging clinicians to incorporate adequate spiritual assessment into patient care and implementing chaplain covisits for all initial outpatient visits. Outcomes The quality improvement interventions increased spiritual assessment (baseline vs. postinterventions): chaplain covisits (25.5% vs. 50%), Faith, Importance/Influence, Community, Address/Action in care completion (49% vs. 72%), and psychosocial evaluation (89% vs. 94%). Conclusions/Lessons Learned Improved spiritual assessment in an outpatient palliative care clinic setting can occur with a multidisciplinary approach. This project also identifies data collection and documentation processes that can be targeted for improvement.