Hospital Medicine
In the busy day of a hospitalist, complex patients can lead to a backlog in daily rounds, delayed discharges, and inadequate time to communicate with patients and families. Expertise in symptom management and conversations about care priorities allow hospitalists to efficiently address common gaps in care for people living with serious illness, and to identify patients that would benefit from a palliative care referral.
Visit the Society for Hospital Medicine's Resource Room for Palliative Care to access additional resources for hospitalists.
Identify Gaps in Care for Seriously Ill Patients
An introduction to palliative care, how it is delivered, its impact on quality of life, and the growing population of patients who need it.
The value of skills training for hospitalists.
Journal of Hospital Medicine, December 2017.
Journal of Hospital Medicine, June 2018.
Journal of Hospital Medicine, December 2018.
Checklist of triggers for referral to a specialty palliative care team.
Improve Communication
Learn best practices for having patient-centered conversations about a serious illness diagnosis.
Learn how to effectively discuss prognosis with patients and their caregivers.
Learn best practices for building trust, eliciting patient values, and having patient-centered conversations about goals of care.
Learn to effectively lead meetings that help patients and caregivers become aligned around the patient’s goals.
Learn techniques to help patients and their caregivers plan for the future, both during the early stages of a serious illness and as a disease progresses.
Manage Pain and Other Symptoms
Conducting a comprehensive pain assessment to guide safe and effective treatment.
Integrating routine risk assessment for substance use disorder when considering or using opioid therapy.
Designing a safe and effective opioid trial for the patient with serious illness.
Ongoing evaluation of opioid benefits, risks, and side effects for the patient with serious illness.
Safe opioid prescribing for patients with serious illness, using the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) Guidelines for the Chronic Use of Opioid Analgesics.
Take this online course to learn how to manage dyspnea, including the physical causes of shortness of breath and the emotional impact on the patient.
Deliver Quality Care Transitions
Assessing and supporting caregivers of people with serious illness.
This course provides context and best practices for identifying older adults at risk for poor outcomes, including falls, delirium, and caregiving challenges.
Practical tool for assuring safe discharge for patients living with serious illness.
Download a PDF of this Learning Pathway
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