The Common Sense Guide to Improving Palliative Care
Joanne Lynn and colleagues give practical advice on how to get measurable quality improvements in palliative care provided by palliative care consult teams, nursing homes, hospices, intensive care units (ICU) and other settings. The methods given are "common sense", easy to understand, easy to implement, and easy to measure.
The online edition is used with permission. Authorized web sites for this online content include Medicaring.org and GrowthHouse.org.
Copyright © 2007 by Oxford University Press
- Preface
- Chapter 1: An Orientation
- 1.1 An Orientation
- 1.2 Better Care for Patients and Families: Make It Happen
- 1.3 Why You Need to Give It a Try
- 1.4 How to Start Changing Practices
- 1.5 The Power of Promises
- 1.6 The Temporarily Immortal and the Dying: Who's Who?
- 1.7 What Is Palliative Care? Why Is It Not Hospice?
- 1.8 Trajectories of Illness: Matching the Care System to How People Die
- 1.9 Looking for Improvement Everywhere
- 1.10 References for Chapter 1
- 2. Basics of Quality Improvement
- 2.1 An Orientation
- 2.2 Identifying the Problem and Stating Your Aim
- 2.3 Establishing a Good Team
- 2.4 Measuring Your Success
- 2.5 Identifying and Testing Changes
- 2.6 Displaying the Data
- 2.7 Making the Changes Stick
- 3. Advance Care Planning
- 3.1 In This Chapter
- 3.2 About "Team Delta"
- 3.3 Identifying the Problem and Setting an Aim
- 3.4 Choosing a Team
- 3.5 Measuring Success
- 3.6 Telling Your Story: Time Series Charts
- 3.7 Identifying and Testing Changes
- 3.8 Give Them Something to Talk About
- 3.9 Communication Strategies to Initiate Advance Care Planning
- 3.10 Tools and Resources
- 4. Preventing, Assessing, and Treating Pain
- 4.1 In This Chapter
- 4.2 About "Team Faith"
- 4.3 Identifying the Problem and Setting an Aim
- 4.4 Choosing a Team
- 4.5 Measuring Success
- 4.6 Telling Your Story: Time Series Chart
- 4.7 Identifying and Testing Changes
- 4.8 Common Barriers to Good Pain Management
- 4.9 Give Them Something to Talk About
- 4.10 Tools and Resources
- 5. Assuring Comfort
- 5.1 In This Chapter
- 5.2 About "Team Breathe-Easy"
- 5.3 Identifying the Problem and Setting an Aim
- 5.4 Choosing a Team
- 5.5 Measuring Success
- 5.6 Telling Your Story: Time Series Chart
- 5.7 Identifying and Testing Changes
- 5.8 Common Barriers to Good Symptom Management
- 5.9 Some Special Cases: Older or Cognitively Impaired Patients
- 5.10 Give Them Something to Talk About
- 5.11 Tools and Resources: A Starter Guide to Symptom-Specific Treatment
- 6. Caring for Caregivers
- 6.1 In This Chapter
- 6.2 About "Team Fairlawn"
- 6.3 Identifying the Problem and Setting an Aim
- 6.4 Barriers to Improved Caregiver Support
- 6.5 Choosing a Team
- 6.6 Measuring Your Success
- 7. Continuity and Transfers
- 8. Chronic Care: Heart and Lung Failure
- 9. Nursing Home Quality: Pressure Ulcers
- 10. Improving Care for People with Advanced Dementia and Their Families
- 11. Improving Intensive Care Units
- 12. Building a Palliative Care Program
- 13. Hospice Program Quality
- 14. End-of-Life Care, Spiritual Support, and Bereavement
- 15. Beyond Quality Improvement: Policy Improvement