The majority of nurses see the delivery of end-of-life care in their institution in an unfavorable light, a new survey finds.
Nearly 13,000 bedside nurses across almost 500 hospitals were asked about end-of-life care by University of Pennsylvania nursing researchers. All told, 58% rated end-of-life care at their institution unfavorably. The most common gripe was that patients receive painful procedures that are unlikely to improve outcomes.
“Even the best hospitals have significant room for improvement when it comes to providing better care for patients at the end of life” said Karen Lasater, Ph.D., RN, lead author of the study and an assistant professor of nursing. “Hospitals are failing to capitalize on an already available cadre of skilled end-of-life care providers available for every patient in every hospital — registered nurses at the bedside.”
Almost 38% of polled nurses said they had been discouraged from discussing alternative care options with patients and their families. Around the same percentage said they often disagreed with docs about end-of-life care decisions, feeling they were not reached as a team.
Nurses with the most favorable perceptions of end-of-life care at their hospitals said that they experienced better nurse-physician teamwork, with authority granted to nurses, manageable workloads, and RNs who were highly engaged in decision making, the study found.
The results are to be published in a future issue of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.
