Specialist palliative care teams and characteristics related to referral rate: a national cross-sectional survey among hospitals in the Netherlands

Table 3 Level of hospital-wide integration of specialist palliative care (adapted from Hui et al. 2015)

	Total (n = 62)	Low referral rate^a (n = 45)	High referral rate^a (n = 17)	P-value
Integration indicators	N (%)	N (%)	N (%)
Presence of inpatient PC consultation services	58 (94)	41 (91)	17 (100)	.57
Presence of dedicated PC outpatient clinic	28 (45)	15 (33)	13 (76)	.004
Presence of interdisciplinary SPCT ^b	38 (61)	31 (69)	7 (41)	.08
Routine identification of PC patients ^c	36 (58)	22 (51)	13 (76)	.09
Early referral to PC (≥ 3 months)	2 (3)	2 (4)	0 (0)	1.0
Presence of didactic palliative care curriculum^d	59 (95)	42 (93)	17 (100)	.56
Integration index^e (Mean, SD)	3.6 (.93)	3.4 (.97)	3.9 (.90)	.06

^aReferral rate: N^o of annual inpatient referrals / N^o of total annual hospital admissions × 100. Low referral rate < 1%, high referral rate ≥ 1%. ^b: team of a physician, a nurse and a psychosocial team member (psychologist / counsellor, chaplain, social worker); ^c assessment tools for identification of palliative care phase. ^d Education provided to nurses, interns, residents and / or fellows hospital-wide. ^eThis represents a composite score of 6 integration indicators; 1 point was given for each affirmative response. Total score ranges from 0 to 6, with a higher index indicating a greater level of integration

ISSN: 1472-684X