Page 10 - Hospital Authority Convention 2017

Symposiums
HOSPITAL AUTHORITY CONVENTION 2017

S10.3 Palliative Care 10:45 Convention Hall C

Palliative Care Consultative Service in Acute Hospital – Impact and Challenges
Kwok AOL
Department of Medicine and Geriatrics, Caritas Medical Centre, Hong Kong
Same as all developed countries, Hong Kong is facing an aging population and increased prevalence of chronic disease
burden. Palliative care has received growing attention and recognition from patients, families and healthcare professionals
all over the world. Palliative care is not only relevant in end-of-life, instead the service should be integrated and offered
throughout the disease trajectory. One of the challenges for palliative care is the high prevalence of conditions that need
palliative care. In order to improve the accessibility and quality of palliative care, it is important to integrate palliative care into
care pathway through shared care model according to patients’ need and collaborate between palliative care specialist and
non-palliative care specialist.

Palliative Care Consultative Service in acute hospital is one of the important components in the shared care model. Palliative
Care Consultative Team was rapidly developed in different countries in recent five to ten years as it showed to improve patient
and family satisfaction, decrease costs of care and decrease healthcare utilisation. Local data also showed that the service
can improve the accessibility of palliative care, improve symptoms control, facilitate early discharge to community, triage high
complex palliative care needs patients and shorten waiting time to inpatient palliative care unit. The scope of service of the
consultative team includes symptoms control, discussion of diagnosis and prognosis, advance care planning, discussion of
goal of care, psychosocial and spiritual support of patient and family, discharge planning, care for imminently dying patients,
and bereavement care.

Wednesday, 17 May

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