Future care planning provides a framework for integrating palliative care into cardiology for patients with advanced heart disease, though larger randomized trials are needed to assess clinical impact.
Does future care planning and palliative care integration improve outcomes and experiences in patients with advanced heart disease?
Integrating future care planning and palliative care into routine cardiology practice may benefit patients with advanced heart disease, though larger randomized trials are needed.
Palliative care is recommended for patients with end-stage heart failure with several recent, randomised trials showing improvements in symptoms and quality of life and more studies underway. Future care planning provides a framework for discussing a range of palliative care problems with patients and their families. This approach can be introduced at any time during the patient's journey of care and ideally well in advance of end-of-life care. Future care planning is applicable to a wide range of patients with advanced heart disease and could be delivered systematically by cardiology teams at the time of an unplanned hospital admission, akin to cardiac rehabilitation for myocardial infarction. Integrating cardiology care and palliative care can benefit many patients with advanced heart disease at increased risk of death or hospitalisation. Larger, randomised trials are needed to assess the impact on patient outcomes and experiences.
Denvir et al. (Tue,) conducted a review in Advanced heart disease. Future care planning was evaluated. Future care planning provides a framework for integrating palliative care into cardiology for patients with advanced heart disease, though larger randomized trials are needed to assess clinical impact.