Creating a Colocation Unit for End-of-Life Care during a Pandemic.

Abstract

<b><i>Background:</i></b> Palliative care seeks to support the physical, psycho-social and spiritual needs of patients and families who are facing life threatening diseases. Advantages of establishing a palliative care unit, or alternatively co-locating patients, include promoting optimal physical and psychological symptom management; increased family satisfaction; and facilitating resource allocation. <b><i>Objective:</i></b> To design a stand-alone hospital unit to provide end of life care during a pandemic. <b><i>Setting:</i></b> Mount Sinai Hospital (MSH), a 1,144 bed tertiary- and quaternary-care teaching facility and Brookdale Department of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mt Sinai. <b><i>Method:</i></b> Tracking key indicators signaling the need for conversion to a COVID-19 unit, and identifying factors to facilitate a successful conversion. <b><i>Result/Implementation:</i></b> Using previously identified key focused action categories as framework, we describe our successful palliative care unit (PCU) conversion into a COVID-19 care unit. <b><i>Conclusion:</i></b> We believe that these operational insights gained from transforming our unit during COVID-19 will be helpful to other programs and institutions during a pandemic, or public health emergencies.