Do hospital-based palliative teams improve care for patients or families at the end of life?
Higginson IJ; Finlay I; Goodwin DM; Cook AM; Hood K; Edwards AG; Douglas HR; Norman CE Department of Palliative Care & Policy, King’s College London, Weston Education Center, London, United Kingdom. To determine whether hospital-based palliative care teams improve the process or outcomes of care for patients and families at the end of life, a systematic literature review was performed employing a qualitative meta-synthesis and quantitative meta-analysis. Ten databases were searched. This was augmented by hand searching specific journals, contacting authors, and examining the reference lists of all papers retrieved. Studies were included if they evaluated palliative care teams working in hospitals. Data were extracted by two independent reviewers. Studies were graded using two independent hierarchies of evidence. A Signal score was used to assess the relevance of publications. Two analyses were conducted. In a qualitative meta-synthesis data were extracted into standardized tables to co
