|
|
Article: Comforting patients.(program for terminally ill patients at Daniel Freeman Memorial Hospital)(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- Modern Healthcare
- Article date:
- December 18, 2000
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 Crain Communications, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
In-hospital deaths are a fact of life, but officials at 360-bed Daniel Freeman Memorial Hospital in Inglewood, Calif., worried about what could have been every time a patient passed away.
Now the hospital has a system in place designed to improve the way patients with terminal illnesses are treated.
"There wasn't a formalized support system for patients dealing with end-of-life issues and no way for us to trigger a formal support system," says Donna Miller, Daniel Freeman's coordinator for clinical pathway development.
So-called "good deaths"--those that occurred pain-free, with a patient's family at the bedside--were being recorded less than a ...