Recent research has explored the various impacts of palliative care delivery on different patient populations. Collaboration is key to innovation and standardization, while palliative care patients increasingly value an interdisciplinary approach that includes sexual health.
Palliative care improves cancer patients’ outcomes
A recent study found that palliative care nursing interventions reduced distress and symptom burden among patients with cancer.
Receiving palliative care services was also associated with improved quality, according to the study, which was published in the American Medical Journal (AMJ). Nearly half, or 44%, of hospice patients have some form of cancer, according to a report from the JCO Oncology Practice journal.
The AMJ study spanned a six-week palliative care nursing program that address patients’ physical, emotional, functional and spiritual needs. Participants included 80 patients 60 years and older with a cancer diagnosis, each receiving two weekly palliative care visits for the program’s duration.
The findings illustrate the value of palliative care delivery when it comes to quality and timely access among cancer patient populations, the researchers indicated.
“For oncology teams and general healthcare clinicians, the findings support earlier, structured integration of palliative nursing interventions into routine cancer care for older adults,” they stated. “The results point to a practical, nurse-led model that may improve comfort, dignity, emotional stability and quality of life in aging oncology populations.”
Concurrent palliative care underutilized
Concurrent palliative care is not often accessed by young adult patients with cancer.
This is according to recent study from the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Network Open. The study examined 67,706 patients in the United States diagnosed with advanced cancer or brain tumors between the ages of 18 and 39 years old. The research spanned patients’ trajectories from 2010 through 2023.
Patients between 35 and 39 years of age who were female and Medicaid-insured represented the majority of individuals who received palliative care concurrently alongside cancer treatments, the study found. These patients also received treatment through community cancer programs.
Less than 20% of young adults with advanced cancers received concurrent palliative care with cancer treatments, the study found. The low utilization suggests that an increasing number of patients may experience gaps of supportive care, according to the researchers. However, deeper palliative care integration requires careful consideration of young adults’ unique needs.
“Young adults face additional unique developmental challenges related to education, employment and family building, as well as limited experience navigating complex health care systems in the [United States],” researchers said in the study. “[Palliative care (PC)] can help support symptom management, psychosocial needs, care coordination, shared decision-making, patient satisfaction and quality of life. However, not all young adults should receive concurrent PC. Given the shortage of specialty PC clinicians, a tiered approach could be more feasible, with primary PC integrated into routine oncology care and specialty PC for young adults with greater supportive care needs.”
Building scalable palliative care education
Palliative care teams need direct collaboration with others in order to learn in scalable training systems, according to recent research.
Palliative care (PC) innovation requires a collaborative approach through shared best practices, according to research published in the Journal of Palliative Medicine.
Having standardized measurement and program reporting structures is key, the research found. Best practices develop from the ability to compare processes of care and outcomes across multiple settings. Standardized data collection can help establish quality benchmarks and identify gaps in care, the researchers indicated.
The study found that PC practice is evolving and interdisciplinary teams are caring for more patients with conditions other than cancer. Additionally, more patients are being referred to outpatient palliative care settings, according to the research.
“PC teams can collect standardized patient-level outcome data in the course of clinical care that can illuminate variations, gaps in care and best practices,” the researchers said. “Data showed that there is a wide variation in PC practice and outcomes that cannot be explained by the resources available, even for core care parameters. Additionally, significant improvements in outcomes, including pain, are possible and PC teams can also use [quality improvement (QI)] data to support requests for additional resources and for research to advance our field.”
Examining sexual health in palliative care quality
Sexual health has increasingly become a valued, though underrepresented, part of interdisciplinary palliative care delivery, recent research has found.
Sexual well-being has become more recognized as an important component of palliative care approaches by patients and their partners. This is according to a recent analysis published in the Cureus Journal of Medical Science. The analysis reviewed 17 studies featured in PubMed, ScienceDirect and Google Scholar databases during the last decade.
“There is a need to develop protocols and rapid assessment tools aimed at the ongoing training of the palliative care team,” the researchers stated in the analysis. “Their implementation will strengthen knowledge and provide staff with the confidence needed to address sexuality from both its biological and psycho-emotional dimensions.”
Stymieing wider sexual health integration are obstacles within the healthcare setting, the researchers indicated. The issues include lack of time during consultations, as well as insufficient training and initiative among healthcare professionals to address patients’ sexual health needs. Other challenges included a lack of private environments in facility-based settings that foster open communication about sexual well-being, according to the analysis.
Signiant gaps exist between patients’ needs and professional practice and training, according to the researchers. The findings highlight persistent challenges of translating “theoretical recognition” into consistent “clinical action,” they stated.
