Highlights from this issue

Palliative care in the ED

Heart failure, a common presentation in the ED is associated with significant morbidity and mortality. This is a patient group that have a poor quality of life and would benefit from early palliative care but it's not often considered in the ED for various reasons. So, it was interesting to read a study by Lewinski and colleagues from Canada, they sought to evaluate the use of palliative care services in patients with heart failure presenting to the ED. The primary outcome studied was palliative care involvement. Secondary outcomes of the study were: (1) 1 year mortality, (2) ED visits, (3) hospital admissions, and (4) Heart Failure Clinic involvement. They conducted a health records review of 500 heart failure patients who presented to two Canadian academic hospital EDs. Unsurprisingly, they found that few heart failure patients had palliative care services. Additionally, the majority of those...

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