Danish Palliative Care Database.
OBJECTIVE
The aim of the Danish Palliative Care Database (DPD) is to monitor, evaluate, and improve the clinical quality of specialized palliative care (SPC) (ie, the activity of hospital-based palliative care teams/departments and hospices) in Denmark.


METHODS
The study population is all patients in Denmark referred to and/or in contact with SPC after January 1, 2010.


METHODS
The main variables in DPD are data about referral for patients admitted and not admitted to SPC, type of the first SPC contact, clinical and sociodemographic factors, multidisciplinary conference, and the patient-reported European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionaire-Core-15-Palliative Care questionnaire, assessing health-related quality of life. The data support the estimation of currently five quality of care indicators, ie, the proportions of 1) referred and eligible patients who were actually admitted to SPC, 2) patients who waited <10 days before admission to SPC, 3) patients who died from cancer and who obtained contact with SPC, 4) patients who were screened with European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionaire-Core-15-Palliative Care at admission to SPC, and 5) patients who were discussed at a multidisciplinary conference.
In 2014, all 43 SPC units in Denmark reported their data to DPD, and all 9,434 cancer patients (100%) referred to SPC were registered in DPD. In total, 41,104 unique cancer patients were registered in DPD during the 5 years 2010-2014. Of those registered, 96% had cancer.


CONCLUSIONS
DPD is a national clinical quality database for SPC having clinically relevant variables and high data and patient completeness.
The Danish Palliative Care Database (DPD) Secretariat, Research Unit, Department of Palliative Medicine, Bispebjerg Hospital; Department of Public Health, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
Mogens
M
Groenvold
The Danish Palliative Care Database (DPD) Secretariat, Research Unit, Department of Palliative Medicine, Bispebjerg Hospital.
Mathilde
M
Adsersen
The Danish Palliative Care Database (DPD) Secretariat, Research Unit, Department of Palliative Medicine, Bispebjerg Hospital.
Maiken Bang
MB
Hansen
EORTC QLQ-C15-PAL; cancer; multidisciplinary conference; patient-reported outcomes; quality indicator; specialized palliative care