Integrating Palliative Medicine and Critical Care: What Every Intensivist Should Know

Bonus Session Available in Congress Digital

Location: Congress Digital

CE: 1.0

Bonus CE Session Moderator(s)

Preeti John, MD, MPH, HEC-C (she/her/hers)

Surgeon, Intensivist, Health Care Ethics Consultant
Veterans Affairs Maryland Health Care System
Baltimore, MD

Palliative care relieves suffering of patients and their families who are facing life-threatening illness through early identification, assessment, and treatment of physical, psychosocial, and spiritual problems. Palliative care involves more than the provision of high-quality end-of-life care. The ICU environment is complex, in continuous flux, and requires collaboration among multiple disciplines. In addition to providing organ support and restoring physical health, ICU clinicians benefit from training and expertise in primary palliative care skills including symptom assessment and management, communication about prognosis and potential treatment options, incorporation of patients’ values and goals into shared decision-making, and transitions in goals of care.

Learning Objectives:

Distinguish between primary palliative care and specialty palliative care, discuss the three conceptual approaches for providing palliative care in the ICU, and identify ICU patients who would benefit most from specialty palliative care
Identify ways in which ICU clinicians can use training in primary palliative care skills to optimize ICU care and use evidence-based strategies for integrating palliative care in the ICU to optimize multiprofessional collaboration and ethical decision-making while supporting patients and families
Describe best practices and literature updates on provision of primary palliative care in various ICU settings

Presentations:

Optimizing Palliative Care for Critically Ill Patients Undergoing Surgery and Anesthesia: Ethically Appropriate Best Practice
Primary Palliative Care Versus Specialty Palliative Care: Current Recommendations for Provision of Palliative Care in the Adult ICU
Pediatrics: Palliative Care in the Pediatric ICU: Updates and Best Practice
Pharmacologic Agents Used in the ICU for Palliation of Symptoms: What's New?
Addressing Spirituality and Providing Nonpharmacologic Care for Critically Ill Patients and Their Families: What Are the Recommendations?