J Pain Symptom Manage. Rapid Implementation of Inpatient Telepalliative Medicine Consultations during COVID-19 Pandemic

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J Pain Symptom Manage. 2020 Apr 10. pii: S0885-3924(20)30195-0. doi: 10.1016/j.jpainsymman.2020.04.001. [Epub ahead of print]
Rapid Implementation of Inpatient Telepalliative Medicine Consultations during COVID-19 Pandemic.


Humphreys J¹, Schoenherr L², Elia G², Saks NT², Brown C³, Barbour S², Pantilat SZ².

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Abstract

As COVID-19 cases increase throughout the country and healthcare systems grapple with the need to decrease provider exposure and minimize personal protective equipment (PPE) use while maintaining high quality patient care, our specialty is called upon to consider new methods of delivering inpatient palliative care. Telepalliative medicine has been used to great effect in outpatient and home-based palliative care, but has had fewer applications in the inpatient setting. As we plan for decreased provider availability due to quarantine and redeployment and seek to reach increasingly isolated hospitalized patients in the face of COVID-19, the need for telepalliative medicine in the inpatient setting is now clear. We describe our rapid and ongoing implementation of telepalliative medicine consultation for our inpatient palliative care teams and discuss lessons learned and recommendations for programs considering similar care models.
Copyright ? 2020. Published by Elsevier Inc.



KEYWORDS:

COVID-19; coronavirus; hospital medicine; inpatient; telehealth; telemedicine


PMID:32283219DOI:10.1016/j.jpainsymman.2020.04.001