Monica Fliedner

Inselspital, Universitätsspital Bern

Background/aims: Dealing with changing situations is an integral part of palliative care (PC). This requires an adaptive approach for a) the patient (treatment plan) and b) the team (project management (PM)). Three types of PM exists: 1) traditional (step wise, little flexibility, focus on the final product); 2) agile (flexible-iterative approach,...

Telemedicine in palliative care is established especially in countries with large geographical distances. Digital forms of communication (virtual consultations) are most frequently used and well-accepted by patients and caregivers. The main benefit lies in the reduction of the access barrier in the outpatient setting. Advantages are stress reductio...

Background The public’s view of palliative care often involves its potential to improve of quality-of-life as well as its use as a last resource prior to death. Objective To obtain an idea of the image of palliative care held by the public in the German-speaking part of Switzerland, the authors sought to understand (1) the perceptions of palliativ...

Background: International oncology societies recommend early palliative care. Specific models to integrate early palliative care efficiently into clinical practice are debated. The authors designed a study to look at the quantitative and qualitative outcomes of an early palliative care intervention in oncological care to decrease stress and improv...

Palliative care focuses on symptom management, discussion of treatment and care decisions, network organization, and support of the family. As part of the advance care planning (ACP) process, staff nurses in the acute care setting are often involved in all of the above areas. It is yet unclear what nurses' roles and responsibilities are and what sk...

On an acute urological ward, it is challenging to meet all needs of patients with life‐limiting progressive cancer disease in complex situations. The focus shifts from curation to the holistic palliative approach aiming at patients' and their families' needs and planning care in advance with an interprofessional attitude. Based on a patient with ca...

Background Nurses’ end of life (EoL) care focuses on direct (eg, physical) and indirect (e,g, coordination) care. Little is known about how much time nurses actually devote to these activities and if activities change due to support by specialized palliative care (SPC) in hospitalized patients. Aims (1) Comparing care time for EoL patients receivi...

Background: Intervention trials confirm that patients with advanced cancer receiving early palliative care experience a better quality of life and show improved knowledge about and use of palliative care services. To involve patients in future health-care decisions, health professionals should understand patients' perspectives. However, little is...

Anticipatory planning for end of life requires a common language for discussion among patients, families, and professionals. Studies show that early Palliative Care (PC) interventions based on a problem-oriented approach can improve quality of life, support decision-making, and optimize the timing of medical treatment and transition to hospice serv...

Palliative care approaches patients and their suffering with a bio-psycho-social-spiritual model. Thus, it is the strength of palliative care to complement the diagnosis driven approach of medical cancer care by a problem and resources-based assessment, participatory care plan and person-directed interventions. Interventions need to reflect timely...

140 Background: Reasons why clinical trials of early palliative care (ePC) interventions have prolonged patient recruitment time frames have been researched mainly qualitatively. Our objective was to identify major recruitment barriers encountered in our ePC trial, as well as to implement actions to overcome them. The impact of these changes on rec...

Immer wieder gibt es im onkologischen Alltag Diskussionen, ob, wann und wofür die Palliative Care dazu geholt wird. Dies sollte soweit wie möglich im Behandlungspfad des Patienten geklärt sein. Dennoch bestehen Unklarheiten über den richtigen Zeitpunkt. Weitläufig herrscht die Meinung, dass Palliative Care erst in der terminalen Phase zum Einsatz k...

Aims of the study: In our hospital, a previous attempt to introduce peripherally inserted central catheters (PICC) was aborted after a nonsystematic approach, seemingly accompanied by high rates of complications. The goal of this new interdisciplinary project was to introduce PICCs in an academic hospital, with an embedded interdisciplinary survei...

Purpose: To develop an evidence-based guideline for nurses and other health care professionals involved in pre- and postsurgical care of women with vulvar cancer (VC) or vulvar intraepithelial neoplasia (VIN). Methods: This evidence-based guideline was developed according to six domains of the methodological framework AGREE II. Literature resear...

Hintergrund Optimale Ergebnisse wie geringere Morbidität, höhere Patienten- und Mitarbeiterzufriedenheit sowie niedrigere Versorgungskosten im heutigen diagnosefokussierten Gesundheitssystem können durch eine effektive interprofessionelle Zusammenarbeit erreicht werden. Ziel Basierend auf der Literatur und eigenen klinischen Erfahrungen wird erfol...

Purpose of review: The aim of this review is to critically appraise the existing evidence on 'early palliative care' (EPC), discuss its relationship with advance care planning, and to reflect on the impact of EPC on the quality of care provided during the last days of life. Recent findings: There are indicators that EPC may help to avoid aggress...

Background Optimal outcomes such as lower mortality, greater satisfaction of patients and health care professionals, and lower health care costs within the current diagnosis-oriented health care system, can be achieved by effective interprofessional collaboration. Aim Based on the literature and our own clinical experiences, we reflect on successfu...

Purpose: To address the gap in evidence-based information required to support the development of advanced practice nursing (APN) roles in Switzerland, stakeholders identified the need for guidance to generate strategic evaluation data. This article describes an evaluation framework developed to inform decisions about the effective utilization of A...

Background To test the benefit of an early patient-driven Advance Care Planning (ACP) intervention using the “SENS”-structure we are conducting a multi-centre mixed methods trial in patients with cancer. Because difficulties recruiting patients for studies in early PC are documented the process needs distinct attention because of their often vulner...

Nurses have an integral role in promoting and providing early palliative care. The provision of palliative care is aligned to the basic tenants of nursing in providing holistic care to individuals and family members. In many parts of the world nurses are the primary health care provider in a community and a primary link between patients and other m...

Objectives The aim of this study was to evaluate and compare the quality of written patient information material available in Austrian and Dutch hospitals and nursing homes pertaining to falls prevention. Design Comparative descriptive study design Setting Hospitals and nursing homes in Austria and the Netherlands. Method Written patient informa...

Palliative care approaches the patient and his or her suffering with a biopsychosocial-spiritual model. Thus, it is the strength of palliative care to complement the diagnosis driven approach of medical cancer care by a problem and resources-based assessment, participatory care plan, and patient-directed interventions. Interventions need to reflect...

Purpose: This systematic review analyzed the strength of the literature and defined clinical practice guidelines for the use of oral cryotherapy for the prevention and/or treatment of oral mucositis caused by cancer therapy. Methods: A systematic review on relevant oral cryotherapy studies indexed prior to 31 December 2010 was conducted by the M...

Dysphagia (swallowing dysfunction) is a debilitating, depressing, and potentially life-threatening complication in cancer patients that is likely underreported. The present paper is aimed to review relevant dysphagia literature between 1990 and 2010 with a focus on assessment tools, prevalence, complications, and impact on quality of life in patien...

The changing role of haematology nurses has never been mapped systematically which makes it difficult to plan practice development initiatives in a strategic manner. A survey was conducted to gain insight into the role of European haematology nurses and identify their learning needs. Two hundred and seventy one questionnaires were completed by nurs...

Worldwide, cancer remains the second most frequent cause of death in adults and children. A cancer diagnosis often marks the beginning of therapies that may continue over months and years. These therapies frequently consist in surgical interventions in combination with chemotherapy and radiotherapy. For all healthcare professionals involved, cancer...

PurposeTo analyze patient outcomes and processes of insertion after the introduction of the peripherally inserted central catheter (PICC) in the University Medical Center Utrecht (UMC Utrecht) in the Netherlands.Patients and methodA prospective analysis of PICC inserted in the UMC Utrecht looking at patient characteristics, dwell time and infection...

Oral mucositis (OM) is a serious consequence of some chemotherapy and radiotherapy regimens. A number of reliable instruments are available to assess OM, but none are universally accepted. A unique collaboration of multi-disciplinary experts from Europe was formed to make recommendations on OM assessment, based on a systematic literature review and...

Oral mucositis (OM) is an extremely debilitating side effect of certain high-dose chemotherapy and radiotherapy regimens. It is especially prevalent in patients with haematological malignancies who undergo myeloablative therapy and autologous haematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). Severe erosion of the lining of the oral cavity can make p...

Oral mucositis (OM) is a distressing toxic effect of chemotherapy and radiotherapy. It can increase the need for total parenteral nutrition and opioid analgesics, prolong hospital stays, increase the risk of infection, and greatly diminish a patient's quality of life. Nurses play a critical role in the assessment and management of OM. However, nurs...

Nursing Science and research within BMT started in the early 80s and has been shown to be a useful contribution to obtain and maintain high standards of care. Trial and error are no longer accepted. The first studies were conducted together with the clinical developments and focused specifically on symptom control and management of the treatment. T...

To describe a global perspective of nurses accessing the Internet and using electronic information to improve cancer care. Literature, electronic online sources, and personal experience. Nurses outside the United States encounter a number of barriers when accessing information and communicating electronically, including cultural differences, educat...

Oncology nurses are more and more aware of the need for nursing research. Research areas in oncology nursing are very diverse and may differ between practice setting or patient population. To provide direction for needed research, the Special Interest Group Nursing Research of the DONS surveyed members of the society about research priorities. The...