| Title |
Palliative care in Dutch hospitals: a rapid increase in the number of expert teams, a limited number of referrals
|
|---|---|
| Published in |
BMC Health Services Research, September 2016
|
| DOI | 10.1186/s12913-016-1770-2 |
| Pubmed ID | |
| Authors |
A. Brinkman-Stoppelenburg, M. Boddaert, J. Douma, A. van der Heide |
| Abstract |
Palliative care expert teams in hospitals have positive effects on the quality of life and satisfaction with care of patients with advanced disease. Involvement of these teams in medical care is also associated with substantial cost savings. In the Netherlands, professional standards state that each hospital should have a palliative care team by 2017. We studied the number of hospitals that have a palliative care team and the characteristics of these teams. In April 2015, questionnaires were mailed to key palliative care professionals in all general, teaching and academic hospitals in the Netherlands. Out of 92 hospitals, 74 responded (80 %). Seventy-seven percent of all participating hospitals had a palliative care team. Other services, such as outpatient clinics (22 %), palliative care inpatient units (7 %), and palliative day care facilities (4 %) were relatively scarce. The mean number of disciplines that were represented in the teams was 6,5. The most common disciplines were nurses (72 %) and nurse practitioners (54 %), physicians specialized in internal medicine (90 %) or anaesthesiology (75 %), and spiritual caregivers (65 %). In most cases, the physicians did not have labeled hours available for their work as palliative care consultant, whereas nurses and nurse practitioners did. Most teams (77 %) were only available during office hours. Twenty-six percent of the teams could not only be consulted by healthcare professionals but also by patients or relatives. The annual number of consultations for inpatients per year ranged from 2 to 680 (median: 77). On average, teams were consulted for 0.6 % of all patients admitted to the hospitals. The number of Dutch hospitals with a palliative care team is rapidly increasing. There are substantial differences between teams regarding the disciplines represented in the teams, the procedures and the number of consultations. The development of quality standards and adequate staffing of the teams could improve the quality and effectiveness of the teams. |
X Demographics
The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 17 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Spain | 6 | 35% |
| United Kingdom | 2 | 12% |
| Peru | 1 | 6% |
| Unknown | 8 | 47% |
Demographic breakdown
| Type | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Members of the public | 15 | 88% |
| Practitioners (doctors, other healthcare professionals) | 2 | 12% |
Mendeley readers
The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 68 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Unknown | 68 | 100% |
Demographic breakdown
| Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Student > Master | 10 | 15% |
| Student > Bachelor | 7 | 10% |
| Student > Ph. D. Student | 6 | 9% |
| Other | 4 | 6% |
| Student > Doctoral Student | 3 | 4% |
| Other | 10 | 15% |
| Unknown | 28 | 41% |
| Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Medicine and Dentistry | 13 | 19% |
| Social Sciences | 5 | 7% |
| Nursing and Health Professions | 5 | 7% |
| Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology | 3 | 4% |
| Unspecified | 2 | 3% |
| Other | 8 | 12% |
| Unknown | 32 | 47% |
Attention Score in Context
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 12. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 22 June 2023.
All research outputs
#3,073,969
of 25,402,889 outputs
Outputs from BMC Health Services Research
#1,322
of 8,646 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#49,503
of 329,376 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Health Services Research
#28
of 190 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,402,889 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done well and is in the 87th percentile: it's in the top 25% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 8,646 research outputs from this source. They typically receive more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 8.2. This one has done well, scoring higher than 84% of its peers.
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We're also able to compare this research output to 190 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 85% of its contemporaries.