Comfort Care

Not implemented yet.

Coming to a laptop near you soon: TMP STUDY for primary reason for ward admit: comfort/end of life care

Project Name

• needs a project & item name in TMP - Collectors any suggestions for Project name in TMP that would be intuitive to all? We can change article name if better idea comes forward.Trish Ostryzniuk 19:55, 2013 October 23 (CDT)
  • To keep the entries a reasonable length in the temp tap, do you think "end-of-life" would work as a project name, and as the entry name? Ttenbergen 11:22, 2013 October 28 (CDT)
    • Data collector, please advise what would be intuitive and clear to all on laptop.Trish Ostryzniuk 11:29, 2013 October 28 (CDT)

Comfort Care would be more intuitive as End-of-Life suggests actively discontinuing treatment which we never do on Medicine (apparently.--CMarks 12:38, 2013 October 28 (CDT)

Collection Instruction

• So, I am getting confused. If we create a TMP entry to capture the fact that the PRIMARY reason for ward admission is for comfort/end of life care (only if in admit Doc note states this), then what should be the Primary ADMITTING DX code in admit 1 slot for this patient? yohy!Trish Ostryzniuk 19:24, 2013 October 24 (CDT)
  • The way I understood it is that you would code this independent from diagnoses. The primary admit dx would be whatever is most responsible medically for having you there. In other words, this would get rid of the "special case" collection instructions for palliative care. At the latest we would need to do this anyway when we move to ICD, no? Ttenbergen 11:22, 2013 October 28 (CDT)
  • We have never seen a physcian document the primary reason for admission as comfort/end of life care. In the orders you may see comfort care only but generally it is obvious that the patient is admitted to die in hospital. Because of this, we must use our own descretion.--CMarks 12:15, 2013 October 28 (CDT)
    • I have never seen the primary reason for admission from ER written by a physican as Comfort/End of life even when pt is enrolled in pall care program

The only time I have seen this is when the pt is D/C treatment ex: massive CVA or admitted from MICU for D/C treatment.--PStein 12:25, 2013 October 28 (CDT)

• I have had patients admitted primarily for end of life/palliative care but who would now not qualify for coding for Palliative Care under the new definition. --SCortilet 12:32, 2013 October 28 (CDT)
  • the decision to declare a pt as comfort care only is usually not made till the pt has been there for 48 hours Judy 28,oct 2013

Other questions

Need to clarify if comfort care is the only reason admitted to hospital. Can the patient have any other issues that are being treated? (ie. pneumonia or wound infection, etc.)?? --LKolesar 09:13, 2013 October 24 (CDT)

• Comfort/end of life care is only to be recorded in TMP if a physician documents in the chart that the PRIMARY reason for this ward admission is for this reason only. If physician does not record this in the chart then comfort/end of life care should not be recorded in TMP as primary reason for ward admit.Trish Ostryzniuk 16:05, 2013 October 24 (CD

Instructions

• In TMP: Collectors to enter “Admit for: comfort/end of life care” if and only if:
  • The initial ward admission note written by the ward resident or attending physician documents explicitly that the patient’s primary reason for admission to that ward is for the purpose of providing, comfort care or end-of-life or clearly similar concepts.
    • I don't think we had "primary" in our discussion at the task meeting. I think we should remove it, or else we will only get it coded if they document "primary" which they likely won't, and which is not what we discussed anyway. Ttenbergen 11:22, 2013 October 28 (CDT)
  • Do not enter this into TMP if the decision is made by the physician later on during the ward admission.

Data Use and Purpose

The purpose of adding this to TMP is allow medicine program to identify those patients whom the primary plan upon ward admission is comfort/end of life care only.

Thank you Tina & Allan and Critical Care Review Group & staff all feedback for this one. Trish Ostryzniuk 19:36, 2013 October 23 (CDT)