Figure 1.

Conceptual model for timely palliative care. Timely palliative care has four key components: routine systematic screening, a defined set of referral criteria, a mechanism to trigger referral for appropriate patients, and an adequately staffed outpatient specialist palliative care clinic. The expected outcome is a greater number of patients receiving specialist palliative care and earlier timing of referral, which would lead to improved patient outcomes such as quality of life, quality of end-of-life care, and possibly survival.