Palliative Care Guidelines Emphasize Care Coordination, QAPI

​A new edition of Clinical Practice Guidelines for Quality Palliative Care, updated by the National Consensus Project for the first time since 2009, emphasizes the need for data-driven quality assurance and performance improvement (QAPI) processes consistent with requirements under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010. The guidelines, divided into eight domains, also now include in the first domain a new emphasis on interdisciplinary team engagement and collaboration with patients and families. The team should consist of chaplains, nurses, pharmacists, physicians, and social workers, all of whom should have training specific to the type of patient and family members being cared for (e.g., pediatric, neonatal, geriatric).