Improving palliative and supportive care in advanced cirrhosis: the HepatoCare model of integrated collaborative care

Background: Patients with advanced cirrhosis experience an unpredictable disease trajectory but are infrequently referred to palliative care (PC) services and rarely undertake advance care planning (ACP).

Aim: We assessed whether a novel model of care increased provision of meaningful PC in advanced cirrhosis compared with standard of care (SOC).

Methods: Thirty consecutive hepatology clinic outpatients with advanced cirrhosis, meeting one or more cirrhosis-related PC referral criteria, consented to treatment in the HepatoCare clinic (PC physician, specialist liver nurse, pharmacist) in parallel with usual specialist hepatology care. A control cohort of 30 consecutive outpatients with advanced cirrhosis undergoing SOC treatment was retrospectively identified for comparison. The primary outcome was provision of meaningful PC using HepatoCare versus SOC. Additional clinical outcomes were assessed over 12 months or until death and significant differences were identified.

Results: The intervention and control cohorts had similarly advanced cirrhosis (mean Child-Pugh scores 8.7 vs 8.2, P = 0.46; mean model for end-stage liver disease scores 14.4 vs 14.6, P = 0.88) but a lower 12-month mortality rate (33% HepatoCare vs 67% SOC; P = 0.02). The intervention cohort experienced higher uptake of formal ACP (100% vs 25% for the control cohort) and outpatient PC referral (100% vs 40%), and were more likely to die at home or in a PC bed/hospice (80% vs 30%). The majority of the HepatoCare cohort (81%) had medications safely deprescribed and experienced fewer unplanned admission days (470 vs 794).

Conclusions: HepatoCare is a novel multidisciplinary model of care that integrates effective PC and specialist hepatology management to improve outcomes in advanced cirrhosis.