Gerontological Nursing Interventions Research Center (GNIRC)

Title: Assessment of Demand & Access to Palliative Care Service
Principal Investigator: Brian Kaskie, PhD, MA
Study Site: University of Iowa

Abstract
Palliative care is an interdisciplinary clinical intervention for persons facing the end of life. Clinical team members provide pain and symptom management, functional preservation, and promote quality of life. Palliative care often is recognized as a more appropriate and more affordable method for providing clinical care to dying persons. Still, palliative care services are not used as much as would be expected. Clinical interventions for persons at the end of life continue to be aggressive and curative. These interventions also are more costly and less effective in reducing the pain and suffering of dying patients. In this pilot research project, we propose to describe a palliative care program at a large, mid-western teaching hospital (the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics). We will focus on the potential demand for such services. We then will conduct a group comparison between inpatients who were enrolled in palliative care and those who died in another clinical setting. This group comparison will illuminate the variables that determine whether or not patients receive palliative care. The results of this research will lead to increasing the provision of palliative care services to persons who die at UIHC. We also intend to follow-on this research by proposing to conduct a more comprehensive evaluation of the public and organizational policies that shape end of life care.