NCT05640076

Effects of a 24/7 Palliative Care Service Integration in a Metropolitan Area on Non-oncologic Patients

• Status: Completed
• Phase: —
• Study type: Observational
• Enrollment: 2,831 (actual)
• Sponsor: Azienda Usl di Bologna · Other Government
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

This retrospective observational pre-post study aims to test the effects of introducing a remote telephonic consultation availability from the Palliative Care Service for a cohort of non-oncologic patients followed by the same service, their relatives, and the Emergency Medical Services (EMS) and family care physicians taking care of them. The main question\[s\] it aims to answer are: * Does the introduction of a remote telephonic consultation availability affect the rate of ED access of non-oncologic Palliative-care followed patients during their last 90 days of life? * Does the introduction of a remote telephonic consultation availability have an effect on the rate of EMS requests for these patients during their last 90 days of life? * Which are the main topics of the calls to the Palliative Care Service? Due to the emergence of COVID-19 pandemic during the study period, a parallel cohort of oncologic patients under 24/7 palliative care by the same service during both the observation periods will be used as reference. Participants will be followed up from the date of taking-over request to the Palliative Care Service to their death or the end of the period of observation if followup began during their last 90 days of life. Otherwise, for those being already under home palliative care at the 90th day before their death, follow up will begin at that day. Researchers will compare two time periods to see if the introduction of a remote telephonic consultation availability has an effect on the supra-mentioned aims.

Conditions

• Palliative Medicine
• Hospice and Palliative Care Nursing
• Palliative Care

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
OTHER	24/7 Telephonic Palliative Care Service availability	Metropolitan Palliative Care Service-implemented 24/7 telephonic availability service for the patients, their relatives, the EMS and Primary Care physicians taking care of them. After consultation, if the information and medical suggestions are not sufficient, an urgent ambulatory or home visit could be planned.

Timeline

• Start date: 2023-04-01
• Primary completion: 2023-06-01
• Completion: 2023-06-01
• First posted: 2022-12-07
• Last updated: 2023-07-13

Locations

2 sites across 1 country: Italy