An Exercise in Futility? Developing Policy and Shaping Practice to Address Demands for ''Nonbeneficial Medical Treatment'' (SA536)

as it relates to oral intake options, aspiration risks, and eating for quality of life. Discussion will include the joint development of written guidelines and standards of documentation that provide structure and a consistent means of communication between numerous palliative care and speech-language pathology staff across the continuum of inpatient care. This session will provide examples of typical speech-language pathology consults of clinically challenging situations that were occurring prior to this project and present case examples that demonstrate the enhanced patient care provided with implementation of this protocol. In conclusion, the session will detail means that were used to objectively measure staff opinions of and usage of these guidelines and goals for sustaining and improving this multidisciplinary collaboration. We will include small and large group discussions of ways that you could develop similar interventions at your institution, including identifying speech-language pathology and palliative care champions, education of both the speech-language pathology and palliative care teams, and methods for optimizing communication regarding shared cases.