Abstract 1293P
Background
During last several years palliative care has gained a lot on its importance in our country, but in 2020 the covid-19 pandemic had major impact on providing medical services in general. In our hospital all specialized palliative care (SPC) services (in-hospital, out-hospital, consultation, phone help-line) were influenced by general and hospitals’ interventions directed in minimizing negative influence of covid-19 (conversation barriers (mask, vizier…), limited impersonal interactions (phone, e-contacts), restrictions of family visits, farewell from the dying only at palliative care department...). Our goal was to more precisely understand the influence of epidemy in our institutions.
Methods
We have analyzed data of SPC services completed in 2020 and compered them with pre-epidemic area. We collected number of patients (pts) involved in distinct services, proportions of deaths at SPC department, average length of stay, time of referral and compared with average between 2007-2019 and a year 2019 alone.
Results
In 2020 SPC have performed 1019 interventions (34,4% in-hospital, 23,3% out-patient, 42,4% consultation) for 587 pts (261 female, 326 male). Year 2020 in comparison with all-over pre-epidemic years showed increase of in-hospital service by 60% (2019 only: +25%), out-patient 22% (2019 only: +10%) and consultation 117% (2019 only: + 30%). Average stay shortens in 2020 from 7 to 5.1 day in general. Also, the time of referral in general was prolonged by 50% (2019 only: +35%). In sub-analysis there was a period of a 2020 that stood out with, the period of first wave epidemy, when length of stay was only 4,3 days and referral time in in-patient was only 17 days.
Conclusions
We observe better integration of palliative care in our country for cancer patients in recent years, but covid-19 had influenced on a provision of it tremendously, especially during first wave. Still in general, we recognize greater recognition of palliative care nationally and globally.
Clinical trial identification
Editorial acknowledgement
Legal entity responsible for the study
The authors.
Funding
Has not received any funding.
Disclosure
All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.