Purpose Patients with advanced cancer may be referred for a palliative care consultation (PC) from a hospital emergency center (EC) or as inpatients. However, research about symptoms and outcomes in patients with advanced cancer who receive PC at the EC is limited. Methods We reviewed demographic variables, frequency and intensity of symptoms (using the Edmonton Symptom Assessment Scale (ESAS)), PC interventions, time from admission to PC consultation, hospitalization duration, and discharge destination of 200 advanced cancer patients referred to PC services from the EC ("EC patients") and 200 matched advanced cancer inpatients referred to PC services ("inpatients") from January 1, 2010, through December 31, 2011. Results The median age for all patients was 56 years (range, 48-64 years); 222 (56 %) patients were female, and 243 (61 %) were white. There were no significant demographic differences between the EC patients and inpatients. The median time from admission to PC was 12 h (range, 7-23 h) for the EC patients and 24 h (24-96 h) for the inpatients (p < 0.0001). For EC patients and inpatients, symptoms at presentation for PC consultation included uncontrolled pain (83 and 45 %, respectively; p < 0.0001), nausea/vomiting/constipation (41 and 19 %, respectively; p < 0.0001), and dyspnea (29 and 19 %, respectively; p = 0.02). The medians and interquartile ranges of baseline symptom intensities for EC patients and inpatients, respectively, were as follows: pain, 7 (5-9) and 5 (2-8) (p < 0.0001); fatigue, 7 (4-8) and 6 (4-8) (p = 0.0517); and sleep, 6 (0-8) and 4 (1-7) (p = 0.1064). At follow-up, improvement was observed in pain (125/238 [53 %]), sleep (59/131 [45 %]), well-being (32/82 [39 %]), fatigue (53/139 [38 %]), anxiety (51/132 [39 %]), appetite (46/132 [35 %]), dyspnea (49/160 [31 %]), nausea (52/170 [31 %]), depression (36/123 [29 %]), and drowsiness (37/126 [29 %]). After PC consultations, discharge/admission destinations for EC patients were as follows: home, 65 (33 %); home hospice, 13 (7 %); inpatient hospice, 8 (4 %); regular hospital floor, 65 (33 %); and PC unit, 46 (23 %). The median duration of hospitalization was 92 h (range, 69-114) for hospitalized EC patients and 125 h (range, 108-142) for inpatients (p < 0.0001). Conclusions Referral to PC from the EC led to earlier delivery of PC with subsequent earlier control of symptoms. EC patients who received PC consultations and were hospitalized had shorter hospitalizations than PC referral in the inpatient area. More research is needed to describe the impact of PC services on symptom assessment and management and on goals and plan of care in patients with advanced illness admitted to the EC.
