Open AccessPalliative Care as Essential to a Hospital System's Pandemic Preparedness Planning: How to Get Ready for the Next Wave
Author(s) -
Laura P. Gelfman,
R. Sean Morrison,
Jaison Moreno,
Emily Chai
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
journal of palliative medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.986
H-Index - 90
eISSN - 1096-6218
pISSN - 1557-7740
DOI - 10.1089/jpm.2020.0670
Subject(s) - palliative care , specialty , medicine , preparedness , pandemic , nursing , surge capacity , health care , workforce , advance care planning , medical emergency , covid-19 , family medicine , disease , pathology , political science , infectious disease (medical specialty) , law , economics , economic growth
The sudden and unprecedented increase in seriously ill patients with COVID-19, coupled with both the lack of core palliative care training and expertise among frontline providers and the specialty-trained palliative care workforce shortage, produced immediate challenges to meet the needs of this novel seriously ill patient population. In this article, we describe the rapid expansion and creation of new specialty palliative care services across a health system to meet demands of the COVID-19 surge in New York City. During April 2020, 1019 patients received inpatient specialty palliative care consultations across the Mount Sinai Health System. This overview demonstrates how palliative care services can be titrated up rapidly to meet the acute increase in hospitalized persons with serious illness due to COVID-19, and how these services tailored to the changing needs across a health system.