Continuous quality improvement in hospice and palliative care

Continuous quality improvement in hospice and palliative care

Continuous quality improvement in hospice and palliative care is very important. Hospice and palliative care include caring for people who either have life-threatening conditions or those who are in the last moments of their lives. It is crucial that the quality of care is topnotch and that it focuses on three main elements. These elements are communication, pain and symptom management, and coordinated care. When these three areas are improved, the quality of healthcare improves as well. We evaluate how nurses can apply continuous quality improvement in hospices.

Hospices are part of the palliative care as they care for patients in the last months of their lives. These patients usually have chosen the quality of life as their primary choice in their insurance benefits options (Kamal are al., 2017). Continuous quality improvement focuses on improving the quality of life for these patients. Hospice care nurses can achieve this by providing physical and psychosocial symptoms relief. Physical relief can be through medications and other activities such as massages and exercises. Psychosocial symptoms relief includes providing both spiritual and social support to bother the patient and their families. Spiritual relief could include encouraging religious interactions and sessions, which will reconcile the patients and their spirituality (Aoyama et al., 2017). Nurses must also have excellent communication where they can openly communicate with the patient and their families about end of life processes. They should discuss things such as prognosis, life closure, opportunities for a peaceful end of life, and must be able to consider cultural and religious aspects in their approach (Berry et al., 2017).

We realize that hospice and palliative care highly demands continuous quality improvement, especially because these are the patients that have little time left and those whose conditions are very bleak. Nurses must, therefore, be considerate of more than just physical symptoms relief but must consider other things such as cultural and spiritual needs.

Kamal, A. H., Nicolla, J. M., & Power, S. (2017). Quality improvement pearls for the palliative care and hospice professional. Journal of pain and symptom management, 54(5), 758-765.

Aoyama, M., Morita, T., Kizawa, Y., Tsuneto, S., Shima, Y., & Miyashita, M. (2017). The Japan Hospice and Palliative Care Evaluation Study 3: study design, characteristics of participants and participating institutions, and response rates. American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Medicine®, 34(7), 654-664.

Berry, L. L., Connor, S. R., & Stuart, B. (2017). Practical ideas for improving the quality of hospice care. Journal of palliative medicine, 20(5), 449-452.