title: Health care quality in end-of-life care: promoting palliative care in the intensive care unit.
abstract: Seminal articles published in the late 1990s instigated not only an intense interest in health care quality but also a new era of research into quality end-of-life care, particularly in intensive care units (ICUs). ICUs can improve health care quality at the end of life by better using palliative care services and palliative care-related principles. This article details how the interest in health care quality has spurred a similar interest in end-of-life and palliative care in ICUs, defines palliative care and describes how it improves health care quality, and highlights barriers to the incorporation of palliative care in ICUs.
authors.affiliation: Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine, The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, 600 North Wolfe Street, Meyer 297A, Baltimore, MD 21287, USA.
authors.forename: Rebecca
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Aslakson
authors.forename: Peter J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Pronovost
mesh_terms: D003422:Critical Care / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000592:standards; D003643:Death; D006300:Health Services Misuse; D006801:Humans; D007362:Intensive Care Units / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000592:standards*; D010166:Palliative Care / Q000592:standards*; D011379:Prognosis; D011787:Quality of Health Care / Q000592:standards*; D035481:Retrospective Moral Judgment; D013727:Terminal Care / Q000592:standards*