2024 Funded Micro Grant
Comforting Hospice Box for Palliative Care Transports
Zachary Tillett
Department of Emergency Medicine/LifeLine Critical Care
Dozens of patients per year are transported home or to hospice facilities. The critical care transport team, consisting of nurses, physicians, dispatchers and EMTs/paramedics, aims to create a more comfortable and humanizing experience for these patients. To alleviate any discomfort that may exacerbate pain, delirium, toileting, air hunger or many other issues that affect the dying, the team is using the grant support to create a hospice transport box and a corresponding training protocol.
A series of items are curated to support patient comfort, including a clippable fan that is transformative for the care of patients suffering from air hunger, allowing the team to avoid sedating medications. The team is developing a training protocol for the utilization of the box so that it may provide comfort to patients for many years.