news, journals and articles from all over the world.
Despite a Mexican government initiative launched in 2015 to improve access to prescription opioids among palliative care patients, the country has seen only a marginal increase in dispensing levels, and inequities in dispensing have left many of the nation’s poorest residents without comfort in their final days
Read moreFunded by a McMaster University, Department of Family Medicine, Pilot Research Project Funding Grant, the observational study is one of the few person-centered palliative care studies focused on the South Asian community outside India. The results showed that seventy per cent of participants in the study had a lack of understanding of palliative care and forty-four per cent thought that palliative care went against their values and beliefs.
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A Penn Medicine study in American Journal of Critical Care offers insights into patients’ and families’ priorities for quality metrics during the ICU stay and postdischarge outcomes. Researchers conducted interviews with individual ICU survivors, as well as family caregivers of patients who survived and of patients who died.
Read moreWhen patients have a do-not-resuscitate (DNR) order, it means they have chosen not to receive cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). But hospital nurses report significant variations in the way DNR orders are perceived or acted on in clinical practice, reports a survey study in the January issue of the American Journal of Nursing (AJN). The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer.
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Critical care nurses are ideally positioned to drive full integration of palliative care into the care of all patients who are seriously ill, including patients with COVID-19.
Read moreDuring the COVID-19 pandemic, the sickest patients at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital have had their troubles eased, however briefly, thanks to an innovative musical project. Helping those patients recover — and keeping their spirits up amid the isolation the virus requires — is the motivation for the project, an effort between UAB health care staff and the Alabama Symphony Orchestra.
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As a rapid influx of patients overwhelmed health systems during the coronavirus pandemic, palliative nurses played dual roles supporting patients, patient families, and colleagues. Two researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing (Penn Nursing) are among those detailing the important role palliative care has in responding during the COVID-19 pandemic and in future public health crises.
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New research from Mass General Cancer Center, published in the June 2020 issue of JNCCN—Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, found 40.2% of hospitalized patients with advanced, incurable cancer were functionally impaired at the time of admission.
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During the COVID-19 pandemic, Johns Hopkins Medicine Media Relations is focused on disseminating current, accurate and useful information to the public via the media. As part of that effort, we are distributing our “COVID-19 Tip Sheet: Story Ideas from Johns Hopkins” every Tuesday throughout the duration of the outbreak.
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A four-step process can help nurses and other healthcare professionals identify patterns behind ethical challenges and reveal new approaches to guide communication and decision-making, according to the ethics column in AACN Advanced Critical Care
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Ruth S. Waterman, MD, has been named chair of the Department of Anesthesiology at University of California San Diego School of Medicine and UC San Diego Health.
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Since hospitals implemented no-visitor policies, health care providers and patient advocates have stepped in, using cell phones and iPads to connect Covid-19 patients with loved ones.
Noticing the need for patient and family support services in the medical intensive care unit at University Hospital in Newark, Jenna Marcus, an assistant professor at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School and gynecologic oncologist at Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, launched the “Palliative Care Mobile Unit” with the support of hospital administration.
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