Palliative Care

Oncology palliative care is shifting toward scalable, tech-enabled, and workflow-integrated models

This Cancer review outlines recent advances in palliative and supportive care across cancer types, emphasizing persistent access and integration gaps. It highlights technology-supported symptom monitoring as a way to detect distress earlier and extend specialist palliative reach. Workflow redesign is described as critical to make palliative care more efficient, scalable, and embedded in routine oncology pathways. The review also notes emerging treatments for complex cancer-related symptoms and growing use of digital tools to track them. 1

Caregiver burden in home-based palliative care arises from intertwined patient, caregiver, and system factors

This systematic review synthesized 21 studies including 2554 family caregivers in home-based palliative care. Caregiver burden correlated with patient factors such as support needs, disease progression, and intrapersonal characteristics. Caregiver factors included psychological wellbeing, role overload, restrictions in daily life, and their own intrapersonal vulnerabilities. Additional drivers were logistical, financial, and care arrangement issues surrounding home hospice services. 2

Inpatient Serious Illness Care Program is feasible for older adults with hematologic malignancies

This single-arm pilot tested an inpatient Serious Illness Care Program for hospitalized patients aged 60 years or older with hematologic malignancies. Clinicians underwent a brief virtual training, and 38 of 41 enrolled patients completed a visit, yielding a 92.7% retention rate. Within a year, completed health care proxy forms increased from 23 to 31 and MOLST forms from 7 to 20. All visits were documented, patients found the intervention acceptable, and advance care planning engagement numerically increased. 3

Managing irreducible uncertainty means building shared security rather than delivering certainty

This UK focus-group study explored what clinicians should aim for when addressing irreducible uncertainty in serious illness. Participants defined the overarching goal as “finding security in uncertainty together,” emphasizing shared rather than individual work. The model includes four domains: relationships and trust, personalized uncertainty management, reframing uncertainty as normal, and moving forward together. The authors argue that good care requires strengthening relationality across the team, not only providing more prognostic information. 4