1. A new way of organising palliative care for patients with severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
- Author
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Marie Lavesen, Kristoffer Marså, and Dorthe Gaby Bove
- Subjects
Advance care planning ,medicine.medical_specialty ,Palliative care ,Psychological intervention ,Guidelines as Topic ,Severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease ,Advance Care Planning ,Pulmonary Disease, Chronic Obstructive ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,Quality of life (healthcare) ,Ambulatory Care ,Humans ,Medicine ,030212 general & internal medicine ,Intensive care medicine ,Advanced and Specialized Nursing ,Service (business) ,COPD ,business.industry ,Palliative Care ,medicine.disease ,030228 respiratory system ,Medical assessment ,Nurse-Patient Relations ,business - Abstract
Patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) often live with unmet palliative needs and low quality of life, although several guidelines recommend that those with COPD should be offered early and integrated palliative care. However, none of the guidelines describe how these recommendations can be operationalised and the current literature offers little information about experiences with developing and implementing new palliative care services. This article offers insight into the experience of developing and implementing a new palliative outpatient structure for patients with severe COPD. All patients are assigned to a nurse who has overall responsibility for establishing and maintaining an individualised relationship with the patient and identifying their needs for care and treatment. Routine outpatient visits are replaced by ad hoc consultations, and patients are seen by pulmonary specialists only when there is a need for medical assessment and treatment or a planned advanced care planning dialogue. The new service was succesfully implemented; however, the changes required good multidisciplinary collaboration, dedicated health professionals and managerial support. This paper highlights the need for further studies to investigate the effectiveness of new palliative care interventions for patients with COPD.
- Published
- 2018
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