Table 1.

Suggested Core Factors that May Affect Referral Patterns to Specialized Palliative Care Services, Referral to Their Studies, and Generalizability of Their Research Findings

Factors	Suggested Core Data Items	Example Data Fields	Example Output For People At The Time Of Referral
Domain 1: Patient and Caregiver	Patient factors	Age Gender Service socioeconomic indices (median income compared with national average, work force participation rates Locally relevant racial or ethnic issues compared with population served	Mean age, median age 54% female median income cover by the service/median income of the country 9% of people refered had an Hispanic background compared with 13% of the region’s population
	Patient’s clinical issues	Primary life-limiting illnesses Performance status on referral Phase of illness Time from referral to death (days)	81% have cancer as their primary life-limiting illness Median performance status AKPS 60 Median phase 2 Mean 117; median 43
	Caregiver issues	Percentage of people with no identifiable caregiver	7% of people referred
Domain 2: Professional	Training in SHPC care as a specialty	Are nursing, medicine, and allied health professionals recognized as being in specialist SHPC clinical practice?	Subspecialty recognition – yes
Domain 3: Service	Local SHPC model of service delivery	Is the service mainly consultative (supporting primary health professionals and other specialists); a primary care service, or a hybrid? Is the service hospital-based or regional?	Consultative service Regional
	Admission and discharge policy	Is access to the SHPC service defined by diagnosis (cancer/noncancer), prognosis, or complexity of need?	Needs-based admission to the service
Domain 4: Health and Social Policy	Health system’s funding mechanism	Is the health system predominantly user-pays or is there some form of universal health service?	Universal health coverage
Domain 5: Research	Outcome measures	Are the outcome measures used in reporting research validated for a palliative care population?	Yes/no (for each measure)

APKs=Australian-modified Karnofsky Performance Status; SHPC Specialist Hospice/Palliative Care.

Reproduced with permission from Currow, et al.⁸